


Veritas

by Vathara



Series: Urban Legends [48]
Category: Airwolf, Rurouni Kenshin, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Conflict of Interests, Crossover, Don't copy to another site, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 12:04:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16994673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vathara/pseuds/Vathara
Summary: A night in the dojo leads to looking at some hard truths. Rated for emotional content, some language.





	1. Chapter 1

_Jack_

When you've been in the Stargate program a while, you start thinking about Fate.

Can't help it, really. After you've died a couple times, "Why are we here?" takes on whole new meaning.

So, if you're a somewhat introspective type like me - hey, I've got a telescope on my roof, I know about introspective - well, you start to look around. You start noticing that a lot of people go through pretty regular lives. No big ups, no big downs, just kind of ordinary. Fate pats 'em on the head, or maybe socks 'em in the jaw, and moves on.

'Course, you also start noticing that some people only meet Fate _once_ \- and it's fatal. Car wreck. Maniac with a sniper rifle. One bolt falling out and derailing a train. Bam. Case closed.

Maybe they're the lucky ones. Fate doesn't have it in for them. Like they say, nothing personal, just business.

Daniel would argue with that. Daniel would argue that being alive is lucky, no matter what snarky tricks Fate pulls out of a hat. Daniel would probably keep arguing while Fate tied him to a railroad track with barbed wire and a red silk bow on top.

Which is probably why he's still alive, come to think.

...No, I take that back. I try to be honest. With myself, anyway. And honestly, I have no clue why Daniel's still breathing.

Though lord, have I ever seen the result.

'Cause you see, there's really three types of people out there. You've got your ordinary Fate types, your one-touch-of-Fate-and-die types....

And then you've got the people Fate follows around like a manic wrecking ball, smashing the living daylights out of anybody who doesn't run like blazes the minute they get that little quiver down the spine that says _time's up_.

Oh yeah, we say it's training. We say it's instinct. Finely honed warrior reflexes giving warning at the very last minute.

Bull. It's that little twitch of hairs at the base of your neck, hairs that are tied right into the ears. All the better to hear Fate giggling at you.

Clue time. Fate giggling is _bad_.

And Fate giggles a _lot_ around Daniel.

Which is why we're here in the Kamiya dojo, right now, swinging sticks around.

Well, Daniel's swinging a stick. I'm kind of hiding here in the back, watching, while a little lady named Kaoru leads the class in kata and free-form fighting, a tall, spiky-haired guy by the handle of Sanosuke Sagara wrestles three students at once, and a little redhead older than Teal'c coaxes one absent-minded archaeologist into paying attention to the very hard wood coming at his not-so-hard head.

_Older_ than Teal'c. At least. I don't know exactly how long he's been around. I'm kind of scared to ask.

Yeah. Scared. Me. Colonel. Guy who regularly deals with Things Man Was Not Meant To Know - not in any sane galaxy, at least. Forget seeing aliens - I've shook hands with 'em, killed 'em, and hijacked their spaceships. Not all to the same guys, thank god. Anyway, I've seen the strange. A lot. But it's always been _alien_ strange.

All of which kind of leave the mind not ready to accept that some small, scrawny redhead who's not a Goa'uld, a Tok'ra, or anything else in the alien line, was becoming a bloody legend in Kyoto about a hundred and forty years ago.

140 _years_ ago.

Hell, I still can't wrap my mind around it. Civil war, WWI _and_ II, all the messy ups and downs of a world that can't seem to ever keep itself straightened out more than a year at a time, tops - he's seen it all. Survived it all. Even disco.

Which is to say that Kenshin Himura, AKA Himura Kenshin, AKA Himura Battousai, AKA _Hitokiri_ Battousai, has been going _nyah_ in the face of Fate for a Very Long Time.

Fate tends to get annoyed about this.

And every once in a while - not every day, mind you, or even every week, but every _once_ in a while - Fate takes a swing at annoying little guys.

'Cause after all, you never know. You just _might_ get lucky.

Kenshin's still here. Which to a guy like me, is scarier than all the swords in the world.

_"Yamete."_ Kenshin steps back, giving my archaeologist a fishy eye. "Your sight is off, that it is."

"Ah - well-"

A slim hand goes up, cutting off the stammer. "I do not believe it is a deliberate difficulty. Come."

And... they're heading this way. Eeep.

Deep breath, O'Neill. See those two knife-marks, crossing on his cheek? Himura's not invincible. People have gotten close enough to hurt him.

_People have gotten that close, and he's still_ here, the more cautious part of me yelps. _Running? Good? Now?_

And I tell that part of me to go stuff it, 'cause he's here. Now. Looking me over like....

Okay, that's weird.

Himura's not looking me over like an assassin, dissecting an opponent before the first blade strikes. Not even an instructor, alert for holes in form and technique.

He's looking me over like... Janet would.

"Sit," Kenshin instructs Daniel. Takes a silent step back, and looks us both over. Frowning.

Daniel and I trade bewildered glances. _Huh?_ My eyes ask.

_Got me_ , wide blue blinks back.

"You have been within a strong magnetic field," Kenshin says deliberately.

Say _what?_

"I would say it was artificial, that I would." Kenshin moves a flattened palm a few inches away from Daniel's shoulder, as if he's feeling static prickle the air. "The distortion in your energies is too long-lasting to be born of a natural phenomenon, such as a crater."

...How the _hell_ did he know we just came out of Janet's MRI?

"For you, this is not so great a difficulty," Kenshin informs me, one dark red brow arched. "For one who sees with his heart, it distorts the sense of ki greatly. Your sense of others is off, is it not? There is an ache, here?" Light as a feather, he presses his fingers to the side of Daniel's head.

Danny looks like he's just been gut-shot.

By which I'm guessing Himura's dead right.

Damn.

Headaches have been kind of a given around the SGC for years now. You 'Gate, you get headaches. Daniel's are the worst of anybody's who goes through the Stargate - which is one reason MacKenzie was so quick to believe Daniel cracked under the pressure.

Only - and damn it, _why_ didn't I think of this before - Danny doesn't get headaches like that off-world, no matter how many 'Gates we trip through. Only after he gets home. After the post-mission exam.

Which, ever since Jolinar stashed away in Sam, includes an MRI. Mandatory.

"Stay still," Kenshin says gently, picking up Daniel's left hand. "This should lessen the pain, that it should."

Accupressure, I realize, watching slim fingers press home at specific spots. Himura's done this before.

And it looks like he knows what he's doing, 'cause the fine lines just eased around Daniel's eyes. He still looks tired, but he doesn't radiate so much of that stretched-elastic tension anymore.

Violet eyes look Daniel over one more time, and Kenshin nods, satisfied. "Come."

They head back into the class, and I nibble at my knuckle, absently wishing for a little salt. Okay, O'Neill. What just happened here?

I _know_ Himura's not your standard human. I don't know what he _is_ , but I know that much. He's too fast. Too strong - maybe not Teal'c's range, but way stronger than anyone smaller than Janet should be.

And he sees energy.

I don't know if "sees" is the right word for it. From the stuff I've cornered out of Daniel about the Aindrias corpse-smoke, it's kind of a _see_ and _feel_ and _scent_ , all wrapped up in one weird synesthesia-type package. So say Himura senses energy. Or ki, as he calls it. Funky New Age warrior-mystic type stuff...

_Only if it was all in his head, he wouldn't know about the MRI, would he?_ A snarky part of me points out.

Sometimes I hate it when I'm right.

Kennedy would have Himura in Area 51 by now.

The hell with Kennedy. I wouldn't give _Apophis_ to Kennedy.

Though maybe Hathor. Yep, definitely Hathor.

And anyway, Kennedy getting his grimy paws on Himura would lead to Kennedy getting his paws on Daniel, and that is just _so_ not an option-

Wait a sec.

I double-check that chain of gut reaction, fitting in feeling with facts. Older than he looks. Senses energy. Able to read people well enough to take them apart with words like razors.

Whatever weird part of the human spectrum Himura falls into, Daniel's just a few shades away.

And with that, my gut finally settles. Daniel is human, so Himura is human. Weird human, but human. And humans aren't Kennedy's problem.

If I weren't already propped in this chair, I think I'd melt in relief.

Which leads me right back to annoyed all over again. I am _not_ a samurai. I _can_ disobey orders that are against the law. Heck, I have a duty to. If Kennedy tried to grab Himura, or Daniel....

I'd be in real trouble.

Damn.

I tangle my fingers together, poking gingerly at that thought. I like to think that Special Ops gave me a broader view of the world than your average officer. More of a feel for the subtle shades of gray between black dishonor and the purity of following a righteous command.

And then I work with Daniel, and I wonder when the world came out in color.

Daniel isn't a soldier. That's not a slam against his combat skills; heck, by now he could back me up any day. He's no special operator, but he can shoot, and hit, and keep his head under the worst fire conditions I've ever seen. He can kill if he has to. He hates it, but he can do it.

Yet even with all that skill and experience, there's a part of Daniel that will always ask why. Why are we shooting? Why can't we just talk?

Soldiers don't ask that. Not when the chips are down.

_"The only reason to fight is to protect. And the only thing worth protecting is love."_

Daniel protects us. With words when he can, with weapons when he can't. When the chips are down, when everything goes to hell in a gift-wrapped hand-basket, Daniel _will_ shoot. But not for the mission. For us.

_"I will not yield up my soul."_

From the patchy history I've been wading through, Himura gave up being an assassin at the height of his side's power. Just up and vanished, when other guys like him were slotting into the new government and getting their hands dirty in ways that had nothing to do with blood.

_Probably one reason he's still alive_ , I reflect cynically. _Governments tend to get itchy about people who stalk their enemies in the dark. After all, if he can get through El Bad Guy's security, he can get through yours..._

And a weird part of my brain throws up a memory of a certain ATF web page Daniel sneaked his way into, finding info about Seth so we could nail the snaky bastard.

I don't think how we got that info ever made its way into our report on the whole mess.

_Yeah, people were turning too many cartwheels about Sam embedding Seth in the floor with a ribbon device_ , I think wryly. _A little human-type sneakiness isn't nearly as exciting..._

Whoa.

Human sneakiness. Daniel... Himura....

Archangel.

_Somebody_ had to build Kenshin and Kaoru's cover. It's a good cover, so solid Sam and I couldn't find any holes, even with that nineteen-hundreds photo in hand.

Don't get ahead of yourself, O'Neill. Archangel's not the only shadow guy out there. And those two don't feel like agents.

Yeah. And setting up a dojo on the off chance Daniel _might_ eventually wander in would be too far-fetched even for the White-Suited Catastrophe.

But there's a common thread; I can feel it tugging my hunches up into the light of day. A thread that links orders, and defiance, and that impulse to protect at all costs.

_Hitokiri were not given orders. Only targets_.

You don't tell Daniel "translate this for the SGC". You give him some rocks, and some time, and some people to talk to, and he comes back with legends, allies, a couple of near-death experiences, and weird facts about the universe you never would have guessed. You don't tell Archangel "shoot down this spy plane". You point him toward something dangerous and stand back; the resulting chaos is likely to leave everybody in the area too dazed to even _think_ it was a U.S. action.

They're not soldiers. Heart and soul, they're something else.

_Samurai hired ninja for the tactics bushido wouldn't allow them to use_.

And before Battousai disappeared, the hitokiri killed so one of the main political leaders of the Ishin Shishi, Kogoro Katsura, would have no blood on his hands.

Suddenly I feel sick to my stomach.

I always told myself that as a good commander, I'd never order my men to do something I wasn't willing to do myself. That's a good officer. That's a good person.

But I rely on Daniel to do things I'd never order _anybody_ to do. Pull answers out of thin air. Talk when any reasonable person, including me, would start shooting. Find solutions that go around orders, or under them, or even blithely ignore them if he has to. _Negotiate_ with the people that stole and raped his wife.

And I count on him doing it. I count on the fact that I don't even have to ask; the minute I'm figuring out the problem is a problem, Daniel's already working half a dozen different solutions that think outside the military box. I count on the fact that he does this so fast, and so well, that most of the time we don't have to even put it into a report, 'cause he's solved the problem before it happens.

Archangel and his angels snoop through the dirty laundry of I don't know how many nations, sneaking here, fiddling there, teasing and nudging and sometimes outright blackmailing and assassinating problems. It's a dirty, nasty, thankless job, that people like me usually only notice when something blows up and we end up being sent in as a more permanent solution.

And Himura... Himura _was_ that permanent solution for one hell of a lot of the Ishin Shishi's enemies. Years, he lasted, in a job that history says killed most people within three months.

I have the heart of a samurai, Himura says. The one man I _need_ on SG-1, that I... care about as family....

Doesn't.

So what does that make me?

_Thwack_.

"Ow..." I glare up at the wooden sword that's parting my hair. How the heck did he get that close? "Your point?"

"You might notice class is over, that it is," Kenshin says mildly.

And practically all the students have cleared out, though Daniel and Kaoru are over by the door talking to Karen Jacobs. "You couldn't have sent a note?" But the hairs on the back of my neck are prickling. I don't know why, until I realize violet eyes are paling toward blue, amber sparkling in their depths.

Hello, Battousai.

And amber burns at me - challenge, territory-threat, call it whatever you want, it's Death walking loose and laughing - as he offers a wooden sword.

_Hello, O'Neill. This is the assembled neuronal council of your brain. We humbly submit that this falls in the category of_ Bad _Idea, right up there with dressing Teal'c in a mini-skirt and calling Apophis a wimp. Therefore, being of one accord, we - what the_ hell _do you think you're doing?!_

Shut up. I think I deserve this.

And I take the sword.

"Kenshin?" Sanosuke's hovering, if a five-foot-eleven martial artist with hair like a rooster feather-puff can hover, black blindfold dangling from his hand as Battousai leads us into the middle of the dojo. "You sure you want to do this?"

_"Aa."_ Standing ready, Battousai lets Sanosuke blindfold him.

Huh?

Sanosuke steps back. Shakes his head. Looks at me.

"Might as well call Megumi now," he mutters, walking off.

Now I'm really confused.

"It occurs to me," Battousai observes coolly, "That you may need reason to avoid this... magnetic anomaly."

Well, maybe. Command's slow to ditch what works, and the MRI does work to keep the Goa'uld hitchhikers out. But Janet said ultrasound could work too, and it wouldn't take that much to get her to give it a try...

And his left hand twitches, invitation clear as day. _Come at me_.

For a long second, I hesitate. Blindfold or not, this guy is good.

Reality check, O'Neill. He's not going to kill you. Not here. Not in front of Daniel.

And if he hurts you... well, if you were him, what would you do?

Hope Janet's got icepacks.

Here we go-

And Battousai just _vanishes_. I feel a ruffle of air-

_Overhead!_

Wood or not, a blade's a blade; I do have some idea what to do with this thing-

_Clack! Crack!_

Ow.

And I shake out my stinging hand, gripping the hilt again to turn toward the blindfolded swordsman who parried my blow, thwacked me on the shoulder _just_ hard enough to feel, and landed behind me.

Perfectly.

Which ought to be impossible.

Your sense of balance is based on vision. Believe me, I know. I've taught blind-fighting. Fought blind, or in the dark, with my ears ringing from enemy and friendly explosions alike. Blind people develop a sense of balance that feeds back from touch and inner ears, but for people with working eyes, balance depends on sight.

And that blindfold's a good one. Battousai _can't_ see.

So I ignore my eyes, and go after him again.

And he whirls aside, dodging me by a paper's width, wood kissing my neck in a feather-light slice that live steel would have turned into bloody fountains.

No. Friggin'. Way.

I turn to my strengths, stalking him down the dojo, silent as a mouse. Turning and wheeling as much as I can, trying to throw off whatever the hell he's doing that can let him stand on two feet.

Only he's silent wind and cat-leaps and tighter, wilder whirls of his own, finally letting loose with a quiet laugh-

And next thing you know, playtime is _over_ , 'cause screw it, there isn't even a _blur_ -

Just a sense of _impact_ that goes all the way through my ribs to my spine, and twisting, and falling...

Hello, Mr. Ceiling.

"Jack?" Daniel. Worried as heck.

And I'm lying here painfully aware that a real sword would've sliced me in half. And he pulled it.

Don't ask me how I know, all right? This was just practice, a demonstration...

Hell. He _pulled_ it.

"I'm okay," I wheeze. "I'm just not moving."

Cloth rustles, and Kenshin shakes out the blindfold. Amber's gone again, leaving just concerned violet. "Do you see?"

Actually, I think I'm starting to.

I look up at one bespectacled archaeologist, meeting concern with speculation. I've seen Daniel shoot with glasses, and read with glasses, and walk into low-lying pipes without glasses. Not to mention have the occasional conversation with fire extinguishers.

But when Daniel needs to hit something, when our lives are on the line and he _has_ to shoot an enemy....

He shoots, and he hits. Glasses or not.

I've been trying to teach somebody when I don't even know how he sees the world.

If I were Himura, I'd have kicked my ass all over this dojo.

And violet smiles ruefully at me, and Kenshin gives me a little shrug. _And what would that have proven?_ I can all but hear him say. _I am not the one you have injured, that I am not._

I sit up. Carefully. I don't think he cracked anything, but I can bet Janet's going to have some nasty words about the pretty colors on my ribs. "This... ki sense. Whatever you call it. It's more basic than sight. You can use one to substitute for the other."

"Whoa, is that what this was about?" Sanosuke breaks in. "Kenshin? What's going on here?"

"A lesson in seeing, Sano." Kenshin nods at me. "The two are not the same. Just as the body's eyes can be fooled, so can those of the heart and soul. Sensing ill intent will not tell you the nature of the weapon you face; for that, you must have eyes, ears, and wit. And even the keenest sense of ki may fail in the face of one who bears no soul to burn in the mind's eye."

"Or in layman's terms," Sanosuke puts in, "Psychos are _really_ hard to spot."

"They may even draw the heart of one who is injured," Kenshin states, drawing Daniel in with his eyes. "For the silence within them seems like peace, and their chill quenches the fire of knowing, leaving the soul numb. And they themselves are drawn to you, for you burn so brightly, and they believe that here, at last, they may find something to fill the freezing void within them." Pulled-back red hair whispers over his gi as he shakes his head. "But their quiet is only the dead, cold stillness of an empty grave. And trying to warm themselves, they will burn you to ashes; that they will."

Daniel blinks. Gapes.

I don't. Though I want to. Years, I've been thinking Daniel attracted the psycho type. Never would have guessed I was actually _right_.

"You never do that in class."

Violet flinches almost imperceptibly, and I let out a quiet breath. Thanks for the distraction, Ms. Jacobs.

...Wait a sec. He's _that_ good at this Hiten Whatsis, and he never shows it off in front of the students?

Cheyenne, we have suspicious quiet over here.

"Why don't you ever do that in class?" The brunette asks Kenshin, one hand describing a graceful arc in air. "It was... beautiful."

"Because it's ancient kenjutsu, Karen, not kendo. A _satsujin-ken_." Kaoru's voice isn't disapproving, just a little sad. "Kamiya Kasshin is meant for self-defense. It's safe. Hiten Mitsurugi... is meant to protect."

"And it's not safe at all," Sano adds dryly. "What Little Missy's trying to say, Ms. Jacobs, is that kenjutsu was meant for real war. Unless you really think somebody's going to drop you in the middle of a firefight with nothing but your sword-" he spreads wide hands, "-you're better off here."

_Meant for real war._ Damn. That's what you used in the Revolution, isn't it, Himura? The blade that flashed lightning, that struck and killed where it passed.

And with a few exceptions like Sano, here, your wife's students aren't warriors. Just people, trying to get by. Odds are good they'll never pick up a sword for real....

Unless people like me screw up royally, and the Goa'uld come calling.

It's almost happened. It's almost happened a couple times too many.

"You should teach."

"Jack?"

One word, and Daniel manages to pack in, _Say what?_ _Asking him about gaki and ki is one thing - you're asking Kenshin to teach people how to kill with swords?_ and, _You're the guy who worries about security clearances, and you're actually telling him this much?_

Kenshin looks us both over, and I'd bet next week's pay he caught at least half of that. "There are very few who can master it. Hiten Mitsurugi demands strength, agility... and above all, a clear head."

"Not to mention a sakabatou so you don't kill your teacher," Sanosuke mutters.

Erk. He's not serious...?

Damn. He is.

Hold up. If Kenshin doesn't show off in class, but Sanosuke knows his style that well?

I add another name to my list to check out, and set the question aside. "Start looking," I advise.

"What," Kaoru says in a voice that could cut glass, "Are you people doing under that mountain?"

"Deep-space radar telemetry," Karen states, pretty eyes narrow. "Or that's what I was told."

Heh. Busted. "Night, all," I wave, heading for the door.

"What happened to my husband, Colonel?"

Karen's tone rips the civilization right off the words.

Part of me wants to freeze right there. Part of me wishes I were back on that floor facing Battousai; he'd kill me quickly. Karen, with all that grief and pain and rage....

I'm not getting into a dark alley with that woman. No way, no how. Sure, I could probably put her down in five seconds flat. You know how long five seconds is when someone's going at you with a knife? I like all my various bits and pieces right where they are, thank you.

Thank god for pagers.

I check the number, note Janet's message. So SG-2's finally back from Abydos with their samples, and....

Negative match.

Sweet Mother Mary.

"Daniel," I say when I can breathe again. "Please let me take you home. There's something I need to tell you."

But the look in Karen's eyes stops me on the threshold. Just for a moment.

_It's classified. I can't tell you how he died. I can't tell you that we're fighting a war nobody knows about. I can't tell you how his team got ambushed, and the whole mission went down the tubes, and a Jaffa's arms snapped his neck like a twig._

_I can't even tell you that he went down fighting_.

"He was a brave man," I say simply.

Her words chase me into the night, haunting me all the miles home. "Then I wish he'd been a _coward!_ "

"She didn't mean it," Daniel says as we walk into the house. My house; there's no way I'm leaving Daniel in his own apartment. Not tonight. Not with what I have to tell him.

"Yeah, she did." I head for the fridge, pull out a pair of the bottles of dark microbrew Daniel likes. He doesn't drink much; surprising, given he's the guy who taught Skaara's crew how to distill moonshine. For medicinal purposes, of course.

One of these bottles probably won't put him out. But it _will_ make him numb.

Which might just save my ass.

"Jack...?"

I hand him an open bottle, take a pull of mine. Confused, he echoes me. "Ferretti just got back from Abydos."

"He did? Nobody told me. Why? Is something wrong? Is Kasuf-?"

"Whoa, whoa. Everybody's fine. And - I had a reason." This is a nice beer. I know it is, I've had it before. Why doesn't it taste good? "I didn't think about it, any more than you did... and then when I did, I had to wait for when somebody I could trust could go. Somebody who wouldn't be suspicious, and who could keep his mouth shut no matter what. I had to wait, when it hurt, when it hurt _you_... but I had to." Deep breath. "I sent Ferretti to check on the grave."

The grave. For Daniel, there's only one that matters.

"Why?" he whispers.

Another tasteless sip. "Janet just got done running the tissue samples. Compared them to Kasuf and Skaara." I set down my beer. "It's not her, Daniel."

And I catch his bottle, just before it hits the carpet.

The punch, I miss.

_Damn_ , he's gotten good over the past few years.

He steps back and shakes out his hand, breathing hard. There's this odd little catch in his breath, and his eyes are way too bright behind his glasses. _"Why?"_

Oh man, I do not like that break in his voice.

So I start talking. Fast. "PC-1240. The Mirror. Went to another SGC. Got some info that said Amaunet might have pulled a fast one. But I had to check. _Had_ to."

He kind of wobbles in place, shaking his head. "It's not her?"

"No. It's not."

I grab him as his knees give way. Let him lean on me, hot saltwater dripping through my shirt, a soundless keen vibrating in his throat.

"I left her. Oh gods, Jack, I left her out there...."

"It's not your fault," I tell him, over and over again. "It's not your fault."

_It is not your fault, but it is your responsibility_.

So when did I get a Meiji swordsman's voice stuck in my head?

"We'll find her, Danny. I promise."

I tuck him in for the night, curled on himself like an exhausted kitten, and tiptoe back to the kitchen to pour out the rest of the beer. I'm going to need a very clear head tomorrow.

Three little words. Three words that flip the world upside down, shifting shades of gray to blazing color.

Three words I'm going to have to tell the general about, in great and explicit detail. Why do I get the feeling this is not going to be easy?

"You told a person of unknown abilities, possibly an assassin, living under an alias that there's a _war_ going on under this mountain?" Hammond thunders the next morning.

_Knew_ this wouldn't be easy.

I resist the urge to pat the ringing out of my ears. Wow. We really need a little more paint on these office walls. Dampen the vibration that comes from a pissed-off general trying to decide whether he'd like you filleted or just skewered. "You know, technically he's not living under an alias...."

"Colonel!"

"Sir." Time to stand uniform-straight. "All I said was, 'You should teach'."

"Knowing precisely how he'd take those words!"

Well, yeah.

I may not have funky ki senses, but I can read people. Himura's pared his priorities down to basics: family, students, the general area if he's got the time. And I just warned him all of that might be in danger. The kind of danger that _needs_ a lethal dose of steel to convince it to back off and go the hell away.

He got us out of a tight spot. I warned him more might be coming. Fair's fair.

"All right, Colonel." Hammond goes from boil to simmer, just waiting to release a blast of superheated steam if he gets a dumb answer. "Enlighten me as to precisely why this was a good idea. And not one word about security or lack of breaches thereof. We both know there's the letter and the spirit of the law. You may not have broken one but you've definitely bent the other."

"A hundred and forty years later, history's not that easy to piece together," I start, laying down the folder of bits Sam and I were able to find. "Parts of Kyoto burned in the Revolution, wiping out a lot of the contemporary records. And what's left is mostly in Japanese. But what I got tells me most hitokiri were just rumors. Ghosts in the night, until somebody left their hacked bodies in the street. They sure as heck weren't legends."

Hammond raises a faded red brow. Translation, _I'm listening, but you've got five more minutes to make your point before I toss you out on your ear._

"I think - I'm not sure, but I think - Himura Battousai only spent the first half of his career as an assassin. After that, he was a free swordsman, protecting other revolutionaries against the government's death squad, the Shinsengumi," I state bluntly. "If you look hard at these little bits of legend, he was a running skirmisher. The guy who held the rearguard when everybody else was making a fighting retreat. The guy who took bridges, and ships, and the odd bunch of cannons when he had to. He may say he's not a soldier, sir, but he's one hell of a guerilla warrior."

"He was _then_ ," Hammond points out. _If you're right_ , he doesn't add. 'Cause impossible as it seems, the general thinks I _am_ right. Red hair. Cross-shaped scar. Hiten Mitsurugi. And that damn photo... we've seen enough improbable stuff off Earth. Why not something on it?

"One phone call and a few hints from Daniel, and he suckered in that corpse-smoke," I point right back. "You don't lose that edge, sir. Trust me. It's a quirk of mind. Some people have it, some don't. Himura's got it. He trained it. He used it. He's dangerous now. Give him a month to blow the dust off, and he'll be lethal again."

"And this is a good idea because...?" Hammond's tone may be patient, but those narrowed eyes are almost as scary as Kenshin getting annoyed.

"General. What happens if somebody ever takes the SGC?"

And he's quiet, and I know he's thinking about the last Foothold situation we had. P3X-118 may be locked out of the dialing system now, but who's to say there's not some other weird alien race out there drooling at the thought of Earth on a silver platter. Maybe the Goa'uld can't wiggle their way around the Asgaard treaty to take our planet, but it sure as heck won't stop people Thor and his buddies have never heard of.

And if the System Lords ever get past Thor - and with the Replicators loose, they just might - either they'll do the smart thing and crush this whole planet to cinders...

Or they'll try to take it. And us.

Given what happened when the Hivemind crashed the party, they'd have a fight on their hands. But if even one ha'tak broke through that fight and landed... and if the Goa'uld threw enough of them at Earth, one _would_...

There's a heck of a difference between fighting alien ships in the air and taking on Jaffa and possessed people on the ground.

"We can call up tanks. We can call down bombs. Heck, we can call in the National Guard. But concrete and steel eat people. They always have," I say bluntly. "I don't care if it was a hundred forty years ago or last week; Himura made it through two _years_ of urban warfare. And guns or no guns, the only way for a human being to survive a platoon of Jaffa armed with zats is to _not get hit_." I let out a slow breath. "Sir, I hope like hell we never need him."

Because if we do, if we're down to fighting the Goa'uld hand to hand....

Abydos did it. I was there. It was awful.

But we won.

"I'll take that under consideration, Colonel." Some of the anger eases out of those eyes. "Jack. How is Daniel?"

I touch my jaw; the bruise isn't much, I did dodge it some, but I can feel it every time my lips twitch. "Ticked off. Scared. Shaky. Feeling guilty as hell, like he should have known she was still alive. Somehow." I shrug. "Couple months ago, I would've given you even odds he'd be curled up in a corner somewhere, trying to hide in his books. Now? He's hurt. But I think he's okay. Mostly." Outside of wanting to throttle Amaunet. But then, I'd call that a healthy response.

Have I mentioned I'm not MacKenzie?

Speaking of... "Any news on the shrink search?" Given that we've just knocked Daniel's world askew _again_ , it'd be nice if we had somebody who really knew how to pick up the pieces this time. Not to mention that while the SGC has been delighting in being shrink-free since MacKenzie and the general - ahem - mutually decided the guy's presence in this duty station was no longer a good idea, we do need somebody to handle the fallout of the usual near-death experiences around here.

"As a matter of fact," Hammond loosens up another notch. "We've managed to locate a few candidates who pass the required security vetting and indicate an interest in experiences that fall outside the norm. Naomi should have the files."

"You got a preference?" I ask, catching something in that tilt of head.

"Dr. John Baird," Hammond nods. "He's a civilian."

"But?" I note.

The general smiles wryly. "On his application, he wrote, 'Anything might be possible; some things are just implausible, impractical, or unfeasible'."

"Take him," I say instantly.

Hammond gives me a _look_.

"I'll read the files," I add. Mrs. O'Neill didn't raise any dummies.

But I'll bet we take him.

And on to my last place to wreak havoc for the day... I saunter into the infirmary, noting one of SG-4 trying to sleep sitting up on pillows. I'm not sure how he got a porcupine-frog critter's spines there, and I don't think I really want to know. "So what's the verdict, Doc?"

Red hair drifting over her cute nose, Janet doesn't even look up, tracing two green squiggles on her computer screen. "Hmm."

"Hmm?"

"Hmm...."

"Case you hadn't noticed, we're two short of a barbershop quartet."

She gives me the evil Napoleon eye; the one that says, _I own a catheter and a really honkin' big needle, so go ahead, make my day_. "Ultrasound."

Ooookay. "I know I'm going to hate myself for asking this, but - details?"

"You know an EEG traces variations in electric force in the brain?"

"Yeah." It's the same kind of funny squiggles Janet got off Sam when Jolinar was dying inside her. Sam's kept going, got stronger; Jolinar's just went flat.

Janet points to one set. "Daniel, pre-MRI." Drops her finger to the next set. "Post-MRI." Taps a few keys, turning pre-MRI from green to blue, then laying one on top of the other.

I'm no doc, but I can see a difference. Pre definitely spikes higher than post. "And this means...?"

"Hard to say. Some people claim you can get an EEG off a bowl of jelly if you wiggle it right." Janet gives the screen the evil eye. "But based on my experience in the SGC, Colonel, I'd say the MRI definitely has a depressing effect on Dr. Jackson, and it should be restricted to medical necessity only." She looks up at me. "I'd also like to set up a screening program over the next few weeks to see if anyone else in the SGC has this problem."

"Good thinking." Yow. Hadn't thought of that. "So you're saying this is definitely something that just happens in some people?"

"Every test I've run on Daniel since he came back from Abydos said human, Colonel," Janet says dryly. "Not to mention the medical details I've been exchanging with Dr. Takani on ki as it relates to energy-draining creatures. Apparently these gaki are known of in the traditional Oriental medical community. As are the rare people who are born seeing them. Traditionally, some of them would become priests or shrine maidens. Others might take up the profession of _youkai-taijiya_ ; demon slayers. So yes, it looks like a purely human variation. Rare, but human. Like being left-handed." She cocks her head at me. "You're really worried."

"Yeah, well... you saw what Carter found on Himura."

"That, I can't explain," Janet says frankly. "However, I will point out that your experience on Argos showed that there are ways to artificially speed human aging. There's no reason to believe there might not be a way to slow it as well. The Tok'ra certainly demonstrate that."

"The Tok'ra don't move like greased lightning," I point out.

She shrugs. "Without a medical exam, all I can do is speculate. And I doubt either of them trust me enough for that, yet."

Point. Not sure I'd trust me either. "So... did Daniel say anything when you saw him?"

"Colonel?" she frowns.

And I've got hairs prickling on the back of my neck. "You did see him, right?" I wave toward the screen. "You've got his EEGs."

"From previous examinations," Janet states frankly. "Daniel hasn't been in here today."

The prickle breaks into a sprint on my spine. Oh, no. Oh, hell. "I drove him in with me, I walked him to his office...." Automatically I pat at my pockets, checking that I've still got the key to that book and artifact-stuffed office in case he's locked himself in. I don't know _why_ he'd lock himself in, but _why_ can be a fuzzy thing with Daniel at the best of times, which this definitely isn't, and I really want that key in case he's decided to burrow into a stack of books and accidentally hit himself over the head with a hieroglyphic tablet-

And I come up a few lumps of metal short.

Oh, please tell me he didn't.

I turn out my pockets, checking what I've got. Change, pocketknife, a few bits of Sam's circuitry, various key rings. House, base, weapons lockers-

Houston, we have a sudden absence of key ring.

No way.

And I suddenly remember that desperate hug he gave me as I was about to head up to see the General, tight as if he was holding himself together with titanium clamps.

No _way_.

"Jack?" Janet says pointedly.

"Got to call the front gate," I say, still trying to add one and one and come up with something that makes rational sense. "I think Daniel-" Not _stole_. Not _lifted_. There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. There has to be.

"Daniel... took my car keys."


	2. Chapter 2

_Daniel_

And I'm hurtling down the Mountain road into town, not sure where I am, where I'm going. All I can hear is Jack's voice, casual and cautious, telling me that yes, he's known for months that my wife might be alive. And yes, he's not the only one; he brought Janet in on that disk from another reality. And the General.

I can understand Janet not saying anything. Jack outranks her, and she's been quietly worried about my health for months. If she didn't have proof Sha'uri was out there - and even I would say recorded info from another of the universe's infinite set of possibilities isn't proof, maybe strongly circumstantial evidence, but not _proof_ \- she wouldn't get my hopes up.

Though I think I do understand why she's been quietly pushing the Tok'ra for more info on the System Lords out there, any chance she gets. After all, they're the big spies, or so they tell us at every possible opportunity. If Amaunet's loose, shouldn't they know about it?

I can even understand Jack not saying anything. He's picked up my broken pieces way too many times, and given that whole mess with Kyra-Linnea... okay, maybe I didn't make the best decisions there. But we had no proof she was a killer. Not then. Innocent until proven guilty, anyone? Anyone?

It's General Hammond I can't figure out.

_General_ being the operative word there, I suspect.

I thought he understood. I thought he cared about getting Sha'uri back.

I thought he cared about me....

And I guess he does, in his own way. I'm the archaeologist who opened the Stargate. I'm the linguist who can keep up with all the alien words and dialectal shifts from the scores of planets we've visited. I'm the anthropologist who can hack his way through the morass of words and actions to try and figure out what our allies _really_ mean when they say they'll help us.

I'm the man he sent Jack to drag back, by my ankles if necessary, rather than leave me with my people and family. After he'd already called Jack's bluff that there were no survivors on Abydos with a bomb on the 'Gate ramp.

Jack didn't tell me about the bomb until _much_ later.

Oh, Hammond has looked after me since I joined SG-1. I'm one of his people, so far as he's concerned. Like Sam. Someone who knows the scientific stuff and can usually be trusted to shoot in the right direction if ordered to do so. I think he even likes me. In a kind of paternal, I-command-you-follow, tolerating the scientific babble until I boil it down, way.

But he doesn't... rely on me.

I should have realized that after the NID made their move on Tessa and Kayla.

Hello? Archaeologist who survived the first eight years of his life in Muslim countries? Not to mention years spent in the Middle East, Central America, and other hotspots later. I _know_ about kidnapping. There are things I could have told Hammond's daughter, and his grandkids. Ways I could have helped.

Some of them are damn vicious, too. Which would serve those NID bastards right.

He didn't ask.

He never really does. That's Jack's job. And Jack - well, Jack seems to think the worst I've seen of people didn't happen until after I met him.

Clue, Jack. Did you think I shot Ra's soldiers by pure, dumb luck?

I hate guns. I always will hate guns. I hate what they're meant for. I hate what they do to people.

But that wasn't the first time I'd used one.

Jack knows that. I think. But Hammond....

Hammond came in with whatever General West left in his files on me - I bet "clueless geek" sums them up nicely - and the knowledge I'd chosen to play dead and stay on an alien planet rather than come back like everybody had been ordered to. And I haven't exactly had a good track record of following orders since.

He tolerates it. He likes me, he definitely likes Jack, and as a good leader he can see we bring better results back to the SGC than either of us working alone. But he doesn't _understand_ it.

How can you not _understand_ my wife being left alone, abandoned in the clutches of her worst enemy-

I cut that thought off, stomping on the brakes before I hit seventy. I don't need the cops. I really don't.

Especially since I don't think I'm driving my car.

Let's see. Pickup truck, green, stray black baseball cap tucked behind the passenger seat in case we need to take Teal'c somewhere in a hurry-

Oh, Jack's going to be ticked.

I don't even remember picking his pocket.

It could be worse. I spent a _lot_ of time in Cairo. Off-kilter as I feel right now, I could have hot-wired Jack's truck and never noticed. At least this way he'll get everything back in one piece.

I think.

Assuming I don't wrap it and me around a guardrail before I calm down.

I thought I was okay. I tried to get some work done. I did. I poked around some of the translation questions Sam left in my email, wondered why she'd left out the fact that she was obviously looking at pre-modern Japan, followed her computer trail back to Jack's computer files and found-

Found what Jack was probably talking to the general about. And it wasn't Amaunet.

Damn it. Damn it all to Sokar's shattered Netu. Can't they leave anything in my life alone?

And then I saw that pencil sketch of Sha'uri over my desk. And the walls crushed in, all those tons of stone between us and Earth's honest air, and I was drowning.

Help. I need help.

One-handed, I dial a number I know by heart.

"Hello?" An older woman's voice, warm, with an underlying hint of caution. Ariella.

"Mrs. Wolfe?" I'm not even sure what language I'm speaking. Doesn't matter; long as I stick to something out of Europe or Arabic, she'll keep up. "My wife. Michael. I need-"

"Daniel, where are you?"

German. Okay. I can do German. "Driving into town... somewhere...."

_"Are you wounded?"_ Steel rings under the velvet of her voice, and I remember this is Archangel's mother. Once a spy in her own right, and about as harmless as fluff-covered razor blades. _"Can you stop?"_

"No, no, I took Jack's truck, he's probably looking for it. And me. I'm not hurt. Not where it bleeds. I-"

I hurt. Somewhere I didn't think I'd ever be hurt.

I thought General Hammond trusted me. I thought he wouldn't lie to me. I thought...

_"Daniel. Listen to me."_ Look out, world, Ariella Coldsmith-Briggs is on the line. _"You need to find sanctuary. Help is closer than you know, but you need to get off the road."_

Right. Sanctuary. Where on Earth can I go that the whole SGC won't come crashing down on my head-

Oh.

But... if I do that to him... he was kind....

"Daniel, please!"

I can't hurt Ariella. I can't. "I know somewhere," I manage. "I'm going."

I give her the address, hang up, concentrate on picking my way through the city back toward the half-wild area I'm looking for. Some of the mountain's bones must have lodged under the earth, here; there's buildings backed up against thin forest, with lots of rocks visible even from the road.

I park the truck a block or two away, tuck my chin into my jacket and head past the garden. I don't want to be seen. I definitely don't want to be noticed.

The dojo feels different today.

I don't know what it is. There's always a sort of warmth around Kaoru. A feeling like resting next to a banked fire; cozy, lifesaving. The safest spot in the world... unless you choose to stir up trouble.

Kenshin is warm, too; but hotter, fiercer. Like a dragon, kept tame only by an act of will. A dragon he only let fly for a few moments, to chase Jack around the dojo as if it were child's play.

But today there's something else inside that innocuous door. Something there and not there, like moonlight wandering through clouds.

Whoever it is, I think they know I'm here. And I really don't care anymore.

I walk through the door. There's Kaoru, one hand pressed near her lips in shock as she sees me, Kenshin giving me a quiet, amethyst glance, and-

Tall, I register; my height, maybe an inch shorter. Dark hair that falls in bangs to either side of piercing blue eyes. Fingerless gloves are dark against his white trench coat, its long folds mostly concealing the dark silk fighting outfit... and the paired _kodachi_ at his belt.

I've seen him before. In a photo, glimpsed by streetlight. Aoshi.

Aoshi, who knows Michael Archangel. Who looks Japanese, and yet _not_ , almost like Kenshin does. Who... burns at me, the way Kenshin and Kaoru do... even though he's hid it, shattered it like moonlight on water to conceal himself.

And what comes out of my mouth shocks even me.

"Is this a safe-house, Himura-dono?"

In archaic Japanese.

"I fear... I need shelter for the night..."

I never realized someone so small could catch me as I fall.

* * *

 

_Kenshin_

I was not expecting this, that I was not.

"Daniel," I ask in English. "What has happened?"

He flinches. Flinches from the very sound of the words.

So....

Daniel is a linguist. Words serve him as blades in his hand, to defend or slay. For a man to flinch from the weapon of his heart-

Something terrible has happened.

"Daniel-san." Japanese will do for the both of us, distracting him from the bleeding of his soul. "Daniel-kun. You are safe here. I swear it."

Behind glass, blue eyes blink at me as if I was a summer mirage. "Himura... Battousai?"

Well.

"He knows?" Aoshi Shinomori asks coolly.

"I've been hearing that name quite often of late, that I have," I admit.

"You'd think Saitou was in town." Kaoru scowls, swinging her bokken onto her shoulder. "Who did this to you?"

"No time," I say swiftly. The tone, the accent, the shake of a soul stressed to its limit; it is as if the Bakumatsu breathed anew in this room. All that is missing is the scent of blood. "How close are they behind you?"

Metal jingles between his fingers; car keys. "I'm - not sure," he stammers. "Jack won't look for these until he realizes I'm gone, but... maybe half an hour?"

Enough time, then. I snatch the keys from his fingers, toss them to Kaoru in a glittering arc. "Call Ryan. What is borrowed should be returned...."

"But not here," Aoshi cautions.

"Of course not." She grants us a tanuki's grin, mischief sparkling in blue eyes. "The library?"

We nod, and I turn my attention toward guiding Daniel toward a door most of our students have no idea exists.

"You've been around _onmitsu_ too long," Aoshi murmurs, scanning the subtle hideaways and telltales Kaoru and I have built into this place over the past year. "What would _bushido_ say?"

"The philosophy of Kamiya Kasshin has little to do with _bushido_. Hiten Mitsurugi, even less." He knows this well enough. So why...?

Ah. Our silent refugee. Who looks altogether too much as if all he might want in this world is a good reason to die. "She would want you to live, Daniel," I assure him, leading him out the back toward the safe refuge of tree and rock. "Whatever has happened, she would want that."

"I know she does."

"Does?" Aoshi asks sharply, closing the concealed door behind us.

Does, indeed. Aoshi had thought Daniel a widower, as I had until O'Neill's reaction betrayed otherwise. "Later," I warn, extending my senses to be sure we are unwatched. The web of small lives in this patch of wilderness flexes at our presence; some only responding to human threat, a few of the wiser creatures sensing we are more than that. I hear the feather-whisper of cardinals hopping through trees, the gurgle of the small stream that runs off the stony hill, the throaty rumble of an engine as Kaoru backs out O'Neill's pickup to leave it safely elsewhere.

And I hear Daniel's steps beside me as we make our way past the screen of trees and into shielding rocks. He's quiet, but no match for Aoshi's stealth, or my own.

I sense Aoshi drop back behind us, carefully erasing Daniel's trail. Good.

I do not know if our precautions are needed. I pray they are not. Whatever differences exist between Daniel and O'Neill now, they are friends. Family.

Yet it is the strongest tie that can cloak the bitterest betrayal. This I know all too well.

_The line between the darkest hate and the deepest love is as thin as rice paper_.

But this is not the Bakumatsu, and if Fate is kind, Daniel and O'Neill will not be to each other as my love Tomoe and her brother Enishi.

I recall their faces, even now. Dark-eyed Tomoe, with her endless reserve, who sought me out to slay the Hitokiri Battousai, as I had slain her fiancé. And wild-eyed Enishi, who consorted with ninjas and traitors to win his sister back from her husband, the apothecary Himura Kenshin....

The assassin, Himura Battousai....

Only to see her die by my blinded hand.

It took years and Kaoru's love for me to realize the blame was not mine. I did not start the revolt, though I did work to finish it. I did not drive the Shogunate to use a grieving woman's need for vengeance against us both, though I did take the life that caused that grief. I _did not_ strike to end Tomoe's life.

I struck to save her.

Three _onmitsu_ had I battled since dawn of that dread day, and the fourth I knew would have my life if the battle dragged on. I could not see, could not hear, could not sense; I only felt the bite of steel, the impact of armored fists, the drain of strength as my blood stained the freezing snow. I only knew Tomoe was _here_ , somewhere, in the hands of my enemies.

And so I gave my life up to Fate, and risked everything I was on one last, blind strike.

_Tomoe. I tried to protect you_.

Hiten Mitsurugi is a true _satsujin-ken_. The skilled practitioner can slay three in one blow. Two is... easy.

Even had I failed, even had I been taken... the _Oniwabanshu_ could not have let her live. The government's honor demanded my blood, the blood of the assassin who had breathed fear among them like smoke. It demanded my head, preferably still attached to my body for a formal execution, and all of me torn and dead in the streets of Kyoto. And it demanded that death come at the hands of one who upheld the Tokugawa regime, body and soul, with its rigid places for class, sex, and profession.

A _woman_ , slay the Battousai? Impossible. The government's honor could not have borne such a stain.

The way we are taking opens out into a rough clearing; half-ringed by forest, the rest backed up against a small granite cliff. Aoshi looks it over, nods approval as his eyes catch the minute signs of the path I've carved there for searching hands. I will not be forced back against a wall. Not in my own practice grounds.

Daniel steps away from me, frowning over a few bits of shattered rock along one edge of the trees. Picks up one shard in particular, a bit of glittering white quartz, carefully testing the fresh edges of the break on the side of one finger. Lays it back in place, touching the fragments around it, tracing the path of destruction back and to one side.

A small smile touches Aoshi's face as he watches Daniel work. He folds his arms, waiting patiently.

On most days I can be more patient than Aoshi. If not half so coolly unconcerned. But now... what is Daniel doing?

Daniel steps back, hand stretched out and level. Swings his arm in an arc. Frowns at the rock, and changes the angle of his arm ever so slightly, this time sweeping from low to slightly up.

As my sword swept, not two days before. Is he... can he truly see what has happened here? From so little?

"It wasn't an explosion," Daniel says thoughtfully. "The way the rocks are broken, along their weaknesses - the force came from above, and swept this way. It must have been incredibly fast-" He stops. Turns. Looks at me, eyes widening.

I smile. And shrug.

_"Do Ryuu Sen,"_ Aoshi says, coolly amused. "Bring enough trouble to Himura's doorstep, Jackson, and you are likely to see it yourself." His voice softens, iron instead of steel. "Does, then? Your wife is alive?"

Daniel meets him glance to narrowed glance. I feel his ki try to brush Aoshi's, reading what little anyone can of a ninja's emotions. "You're not surprised."

"Not wholly, no."

"O'Neill stopped for conversation with me, the day after your gaki was slain," I say evenly. "I caught him off-guard with a question. He did not _answer_ , but his reaction hinted she might be yet among the living. I advised him to leave off deception, that I did." _Did he?_ I do not dare to ask. So fragile, the peace here. So deeply scarred the man before me, who needs it as flowers do spring rain.

"He did. And didn't." Daniel draws a ragged breath. "He knows who you are."

I feel my smile turn wry. "So I have heard, yes."

"He knows and he _didn't tell me_." Daniel's hands grip each other; he forces his eyes off them, up to mine. "But... I think he told the general. And if... General Hammond _believes_ him, if they really dig into the source material and look at who Battousai _was_... you have to go. You have to get out of here..."

Oh, young one. Even in the midst of your pain, you try to help me.

"You should consider it, Kenshin," Aoshi says neutrally. "Move Kaoru's dojo. Move Sagara and the Takanis with you; the fox can doctor anywhere, and Sanosuke's never been one to build his house on a volcano. Mika and her cub will be harder to pry loose from this territory, but I know you. You can take them by the scruff of their necks, if necessary. What you saw under that mountain tallies all too well with what my people have gathered of the oddness here. There's no shame in running from what can't be fought."

"We do not know this cannot be fought; that we don't." I shake my head. "I have walked in danger before. As have we all."

"You don't understand!" Daniel's knuckles clench white. "If the general knows... there are people who can get information from - where I work. They've tried to take Teal'c before. They tried to take Sam when she had something they thought they could use. Gods, they even picked up Hammond's _granddaughters_ once to get him to do what they wanted."

"Did they." I hear the chill in my voice as Battousai rouses with a snarl. "Tell me."

Daniel meets my gaze. Swallows.

Stands his ground, and lays out the tale of politics and threats in shadowed daylight, and a general restored to his leadership only by O'Neill's own shadowy dealings. Brave man.

_Brave as they are cowards_ , that dark part of my soul growls. _Threatening_ children. _They should die, without even the chance to scream._

No. Calm. _Calm._ Remember Sanosuke's laugh, Megumi's vixen giggle, Kaoru's smile as she welcomes you into the circle of her arms.

Calm. And think. Their mother has not asked for my protection.

Yet if Hammond has been as secretive with his daughter as he has Daniel, she may not even know their danger.

"So if they'd do that to him-" Daniel sums up.

"They might try to strike at me. Or those I hold close." In which case, the sternest law would declare my actions justified.

I feel my eyes burn amber.

I love Kaoru. I love peace, and my garden, and making small remedies for the folk about me. I am happy to live in a world and place where one can walk down the streets and reasonably expect not to be slaughtered for a stray glance. And yet....

There is part of me that cannot rest without the thrill of steel. Without the bittersweet knowledge that I am alive, and my enemies are dead.

"Try," Aoshi repeats dryly. "And fail. You'll be careful?"

_"Aa,"_ I nod. Indeed I will. I will not cause my family to mourn me. Not for arrogant cowards such as this. "Yet it would be easier if I knew what they might know of me."

"Not much." The first, weary trace of humor ghosts a smile over Daniel's face. He finds a bit of boulder I have left intact, settles down with a thoughtful look. "I kind of - ah - redirected a few of Sam's files before I left, that should keep her out of the more solid sources for a while... mostly they've just tracked down Kamiya Kasshin history. It's got most of the few English-language references to Hitokiri Battousai that exist; pretty much just that you were real, and sort of sanctioned, and gave up killing after the war. Oh - and that you weren't seven feet tall, no matter what anybody says."

That tiny curve of Aoshi's lips just might be a smirk.

"After that you start getting into Bakumatsu history in general, and Kyoto history in specific. There's a pretty good description of you from a city samurai who got caught up in the middle of some ambush going after Katsura Kogoro."

"Which one?" Aoshi murmurs. Ah, yes. Just the least hint of a smirk. Not that it surprises me; the Oniwabanshu had set up many of those ambushes, one way or another.

Daniel pauses. "Er, night? Shinsengumi? Torch-carrying mobs?"

I can think of a dozen instances that might fit. Easily.

Daniel reads that in my gaze, and purses lips in a silent whistle. "Wow. And I thought Jack was kidding about people having a hard time telling fights apart." Blue eyes half-close, recalling what he's found. "A few days after O'Bon, when Mt. Diamonji blazed with its Kanji, he was returning home from a grave visit... he turned down the wrong street and just about got run over by the Ishin Shishi."

That I do remember. That was shortly after I returned to Kyoto, after Tomoe had....

Well.

"He saw two bodies already lying in the street, and a flash of red that wasn't blood soar into the air. The assassin cut down a third Shinsengumi with one downward stroke, slashing backward with his wakazashi to block another's katana even as he struck up again...."

I remember. I remember the breath of swords passing near, the hot reek of blood as I beheaded the fourth of my enemies in as many strikes. I remember the thrum of controlled panic, knowing there was a second squad heading for my fellow patriots as they fled; a squad they could elude with a minimum of casualties, but only if I bought enough time here.

And I remember an elderly samurai, more scribe than anything else by the ink staining his fingers, staring, frozen by one glance of amber eyes.

He was not my enemy.

But he was _in my way_.

I recall sheathing my blade, and leaping. One swift blow with a saya, and he was down.

"Next thing he knew a brave shopkeeper was splashing water on his face, exclaiming there wasn't a mark on him." Daniel shrugs. "There's a few more bits like that, but for anything solid, they'd have to go back and search Japanese historical documents directly. But first they'd have to _find_ them, and I don't think they're going to unkink what I did to Sam's search engine in a hurry...."

And I laugh.

Daniel blinks at me, surprised. "What?"

"And people think _you_ are dangerous," Aoshi says to me wryly. Looks aside, toward the trees, and a limping ki almost cloaked by a feel of snowfall and sky. "I see why you favor this one, Michael."

"Michael?" Daniel breathes. Stands, as if he too can sense the man's approach. And perhaps he can.

_That_ is Michael? From what little Aoshi had told me, I had thought his American counterpart purely human. And this man feels of spirit blood.

Recently gained, I realize as the white-suited blond comes into sight, sensing the still-unsettled energies about him, the bright newness that feels of fur and feathers and boundless curiosity. He likely does not even yet know the very taste of his blood has changed.

Though if Sanosuke and Megumi are to be believed, most ordinary humans do _not_ enjoy the taste of blood. Even their mate's, shed in love instead of battle. Nor can they feel the nurturing warmth when their chosen one suckles crimson in return.

Megumi was fortunate. Sano's rough life and love of her made him willing to discover what a kitsune-hanyou needed to be happy.

Mika... was not so lucky. For all his tolerance, Russell O'Connell was at heart a man of his faith. And Catholics have very firm ideas on the place of blood.

I hope her next love is more open to what we are.

Ryan may already be more fortunate. Kaoru says Mel seemed startled by the idea of being bitten, but not afraid.

And Michael may be fortunate as well. The blacked lens of his glasses warns any with eyes that here is one who has seen deadly danger; that sheathed sword within his cane likewise speaks of his violent answer to it.

I will speak with him later, that I will. For now, I have more concern for the young spirit who has woven her magic with his. _Hello, little cub._

Surprise. Wary wonder. The shimmer near the hem of Michael's white trench coat strengthens, touching the outermost edge of my ki with its own; like a wolf cub, delicately sniffing something new and strange.

Smoothly, I go to one knee. Hold out a welcoming hand. Calm myself, and wait.

"Kenshin?" Daniel looks where I am looking, yet I sense he cannot see what I see. Not yet. "What's going on?"

"Shh. Do not startle the little one." _It's all right. I mean no harm._

The shimmer firms, leaps-

And I am most thoroughly sniffed and snuffled, misty paws catching on my gi, spirit-feathers brushing my hair like snowflakes. Amber eyes stare into mine, full of wonder, glee, mischief-

And within that brightness, the razor edge of ready claws.

I smile at the young spirit-wolf, violet reclaiming my gaze. "And what are you called, cub?"

Sniff. Lick. White fur pulls back at the unexpected taste. _Ryuu!_

"Dragon?" Michael's voice is level as Aoshi's, but there is a certain dawning worry one can read off even the most controlled of ninjas.

I tap her dark nose, just as I would one of Megumi's wayward kits. "You, not I."

Hesitation. _...Tenshi?_

"Angel?" I smile. "Well. And you must be quite the handful, little one."

"Angel? Who or what is-" Daniel cuts himself off. "Michael?"

The man in white winces slightly. "It's a _very_ long story. Daniel - what in the world are you doing _here?_ " He measures Aoshi with a frank gaze. "Not that I'm objecting to your present company, it shows excellent taste. Still...."

Daniel shrugs, a slight shift of shoulders that aches at my heart. "I couldn't breathe."

* * *

 

_Teal'c_

I am a valued member of SG-1. I was First Prime of Apophis. I have dedicated decades to calm, control, and the mastery of weapons, strategy and tactics, so that I might one day wreak vengeance on Cronus and free my people from the tyranny of the Goa'uld. In all that time, I have rarely desired to throttle a superior officer.

"Sha'uri's alive?" Samantha Carter yelps, fingers clenching on the armrest of the jeep we have borrowed from the SGC motor pool. "And you didn't tell us?"

This has become one of those rare times.

"Might be alive, Carter," O'Neill says grimly as he drives. " _Might_ be."

"Don't give me that, sir! Amaunet's supposed to be one of the Ogdoad. One of the original eight deities present at the time of creation, as the Egyptians wrote it down, which means _she's_ been around longer than Apophis. Of all the Goa'uld we've met, she's the slipperiest, most deceptive, most dedicated to long-range plans. If she kidnapped Shifu and the Abydonians just for a diversion, then pulled off a switch right under our noses - she's out there." She pounds the armrest. "And you didn't _tell_ us-"

"General's call, Major. He didn't want Daniel distracted."

"Distracted?!"

Seated in the back, I arch an eyebrow. O'Neill may not see it, but I know such a warrior as he will sense it. General Hammond's orders or not, O'Neill has done us all a great disservice. Were a Jaffa in the barracks to deceive his comrades in such a manner, they might justly challenge him to combat.

Fortunately, we are not on Chulak.

"Hammond was worried the NID might get smart," O'Neill says grimly. "They went after him; he's betting they're trying some of the same stuff on our lower and mid-level people. If we admitted Sha'uri was alive, they might use her as a wedge to get Daniel off the team. We reported Amaunet was _dead_. If she's alive, it's because we let her walk out of there - and if Daniel let a System Lord walk, they can yank him out as a traitor. "

"None of which is going to matter if he decides he's had it and just leaves, is it, sir."

Indeed. "The library," I rumble.

And there is O'Neill's truck, parked and abandoned much where Daniel Jackson would leave it. "I shall search within the shelves," I state, reaching forward as Samantha Carter prepares to open her door.

"Stacks, T. They're called stacks. And hold up." O'Neill studies the truck. What is it that he sees? No one could remain hidden in that cage of steel. "Let's take a look."

Spare keys in hand, he circles the green truck, wary as if he approached a mined trail. Circles again, and stops by the driver's door. "Hello."

"Sir?"

O'Neill points. "See where that seat is?"

"Oh." Samantha Carter frowns. "Uh-oh."

I peer through the glass myself, wondering what it is they see. The chair which holds the driver is oddly forward; with such small space left for long legs, Daniel Jackson would be hard-pressed to fit within.

Which argues that he did not.

O'Neill opens the door. Takes a breath of the warm air trapped within.

I taste it as well. The scent is faint, but present. A perfume of Earth, delicate and unyielding at once. Jasmine.

"Kamiya," O'Neill declares. "Daniel didn't drive here at all."

"Kaoru?" Samantha Carter's eyes widen. "But sir, if we're right... if Daniel followed my computer trail back to what we found on Kyoto...."

"Why would he go to a 19th century assassin?" O'Neill's tone darkens. "If you're right about why he bolted, Carter - Battousai told me he didn't lie to Daniel."

Samantha Carter pales. "You think Daniel _knew?_ "

"I don't know what to think."

Nor do I, as we reclaim the jeep and make our way through various streets toward a ridge of stone and trees. So this is the dojo I have not yet visited. An odd structure, not like most Tau'ri buildings.

And I pause outside the shadows of those walls. "O'Neill." _How could you have missed this?_

"I haven't been here in daylight." But there is no excuse in his voice. The marks are subtle, but there. The angle of walls to the road. The lack of any aboveground power or phone lines. The gravel ringing the building itself, subtle alarm for those crucial moments before an intruder might reach the door. The way trees and shrubs have been planted and trimmed so the dojo is screened, yet one hiding on the roof might have a clear view of all approaches....

This is no simple place to train and exercise. This is a fortress.

"Oh, hell," Major Carter breathes.

"Yep." O'Neill's voice is grim. "Once a guerilla, always a guerilla."

* * *

 

_Kaoru_

Giggling _probably_ isn't a good idea right now.

But kami, it's tempting.

I stroke ink across white paper, shaping the smooth curve of a wave coming in to San Francisco's rocky shore. It took me a long time to develop anywhere near Grandpa Kamiya's talent at ink painting, but I'm not half bad by now. Kenshin says they're lovely.

This from the guy whose handwriting still looks like someone let a raccoon loose with an ink brush.

Anyway, I'm not bad, and there is a small market for oriental art these days. Enough so we can sleep easy at night. Teaching self-defense is enough to scrape by on, but it's always good to have some reserves. Katanas are not cheap.

Something the three hesitant sets of footsteps on gravel outside probably aren't thinking of at all, right now.

I may not have Kenshin's ability to read ki like a well-thumbed book, but after so long living with swords, I can get flickers of it. Worry, caution, anger... oh, they're wound up like clocks.

Serves them right.

Back to the door, I cap my ink, rinse out my brush, and wait.

More gravel crunching. Not loud, but not as quiet as they probably could be if they tried. So they're not trying to sneak up on me. Good. "The door's unlocked."

Gravel goes quiet. Caution morphs into determination, and the door swings open.

"Good afternoon, Colonel."

And I hear the soft intakes of breath behind me, and stifle a grin. It must be the colonel after all. Kenshin taught me that trick a while ago; use your senses and best guess to picture what you can't see, and speak as if you never doubted it was true. Odds are you'll throw your enemy completely off-balance.

_Careful, Kaoru_ , I warn myself. _First blood counts, but last blood is what matters._

* * *

 

_Jack_

I'm in trouble.

Serious trouble. _Big_ trouble; the kind that carries a Jaffa-sized grudge and all the razor wit of a mind that outthought a black hole. Team-threatening trouble, that's led Daniel to bolt and Carter and Teal'c to train glares on my back like laser-guided missiles.

But I've been in trouble with my team before, thanks to the general's orders to go solo undercover to flush out SGC traitors, and we all got over it. Mostly. Took Daniel a while to let that "our friendship had no foundation" bit go.

Or maybe he never really did. 'Cause when Kaoru turns toward us, I see the same kind of angry, protective look Catherine Langford used on some archaeologists who were busy slaughtering Daniel's professional reputation in her earshot.

Yep, I'm in trouble.

And worse trouble than I thought even on the way over here, because now that I'm looking, I can see this dojo's even nastier on the inside than the outside.

High ceilings. A few subtle nooks and crannies in out-of-the-way places, just right to hide daggers, staffs, and maybe the odd sword. Walls that are almost _too_ regularly set for a building like this; hiding places and passages, anybody? Niches that just about beg for you to stick your hand in - meaning that's probably the worst thing you could do if you like your fingers in one piece. And something like a hundred ways to get out of here, a lot of which your average guy couldn't possibly reach... not unless he can clear ten feet in an easy leap.

Like, say, Himura.

Can we say _deathtrap?_

So I swallow the snarky remarks about, _Nice of you to move my truck_ , or, _Can I have my keys back now?_ "Is Daniel okay?"

Blue eyes narrow a little, and I hide a wince. I forget sometimes how good Daniel is at connecting with people. He's our translator, negotiator, guy who can get people who hate each other to sit down and at least _think_ about the other guy's point of view. People who don't know Daniel from Adam have been known to break customs, taboos, and some pretty serious laws to make sure the guy comes out in one piece. People who _do_ know him, and like him - hell, they've started revolutions for less.

Kamiya lets me sweat a breath longer. Says something short and pointed in Japanese.

"Um?" I spread questioning hands. See? No guns. I just want answers. _Now_.

"He's alive," she growls. "He's not injured." Her hand's not on the bokken at her hip, but it's close. "And he's not here."

* * *

 

_Michael Archangel_

"...And that, to the best of my knowledge, is what's been happening under Cheyenne Mountain," I finish, hands braced on the silver head of my cane.

Daniel's sitting on his rock, pale as snow. Aoshi is... very slightly unsettled, by the look of him. Which means a less controlled man would be either shaking, or shouting denials at the universe. And Kenshin-

"Oro?" Violet eyes are wide as saucers as Himura scratches behind the snowy ears of Airwolf's _tulpa_ form.

Well, that's interesting. I've managed to startle a century-and-a-half old ex-assassin. Not that this is what I would generally call a welcome event.

Certainly not while I'm trying to come to grips with several rather shocking pieces of information myself. Sha'uri, the woman I know Daniel loves beyond language itself, _alive_.

_Target?_ Airwolf slips in calmly.

No. I'm not going to shoot O'Neill. Or Hammond. No matter how much I might want to.

The SGC is currently in control of the Stargate. If a rather tenuous control, given what the NID's managed to do, unopposed by the channels that should rein people like Kinsey and Maybourne in. Hammond has been a good commander, protecting our planet with all the resources he's been granted access to and a few he's managed to snag when no one was looking. And if the man caved when his family was threatened... we all have our breaking point. Believe me, I know.

But to leave the leader of the Abydonian resistance to Ra in enemy hands, no matter how thin the evidence for her survival....

And none of that holds a candle to the fact that once again, O'Neill and Hammond have hurt _my agent_. My eyes and ears within the SGC. My fragile connection to Judith Williams, now host to the Tok'ra Mairin, as she burrows into Goa'uld society to determine just how the SGC can hit them where it really hurts. My finger on the pulse of the alien threats lurking too near in space, who just might be able to warn me of an incoming invasion in time for me to do something about it.

The man who - if circumstances had been kinder - might have been my little brother.

Stop. Think of something else.

It's not hard. Himura's been around since the 1860's?

Which leads me to wonder exactly how old Aoshi Shinomori is. Oh, I knew he and his wife Misao's files had been - shall we say, amended? It's not uncommon in my world. None of my files tell the whole truth, either.

But if he's managed to hide this about Himura... my, my.

Not that most people look all that closely at Kenshin. He's a sanctuary, not an operative; he takes people in, heals them, watches over them until they're well enough to face the world again. And I, being a rather sane and sensible spymaster who's seen what happens when undercover people go off the deep end, have no desire to trifle with a sanctuary.

Certainly not after the man very politely left a few of my less scrupulous agents tangled in fire escapes and nursing bruises after he caught them stalking some of Kaoru's pupils. Students who weren't in and of themselves important, but might have provided biographic leverage on those who were.

Such a nice name for blackmail, that.

By the standards of my business, Himura is extremely polite, sane, sensible, and trustworthy. He doesn't judge us for what we do. He doesn't involve the cops unless someone's being _very_ stupid. And he _usually_ leaves you alive to learn from your mistakes.

Outside of one very memorable incident in upper New York State in the early '70's, when he, his wife, and an unknown number of friends, one of whom I _know_ was Aoshi, burned an entire Illuminati mansion and its private science facility to the ground. Dead bodies all over the place.

I think the local cops still twitch when you mention the word "katana".

Not that I can blame the man. Our files also include a missing persons report filed by a young lady by the name of Jocelin Shaw on one Kanaye Himura, a few days before the incident... and a short note that he was cremated with family in attendance a day after it.

Kenshin has no tolerance for people who touch his children.

And that was in the '70's. Which means I should have noticed something was amiss with dates and ages the moment I read that file. Or at the very least, the moment I met Shinomori.

I didn't. Nor has anyone I've ever spoken to about Aoshi, or anyone associated with the Himuras. Which is very odd indeed.

Though, on consideration, no odder than the fact that Himura can apparently walk down any street wearing that sakabatou and _not_ get picked up by the cops. As he does. Frequently.

And on further consideration, no odder than the fact that Detective Jack Breslin and Santini Air have been foci for a great deal of Los Angeles weirdness, up to and including explosions, yet draw no more attention than "normal" detectives and odd-job airlines. Or that the vast majority of the world still seems quite convinced that gargoyles are nothing but New York media hysteria, giant mutations are always found anywhere but your backyard, and the Hivemind invasion really was just a series of disconnected terrorist acts.

As Dominic would say, _Uh-huh. Sure. You keep thinkin' that._

Marella calls it the _Somebody Else's Problem_ effect; after something out of Douglas Adams' _Hitchhiker_ books, I think. Apparently massive concentrations of psychokinetic energy make it easier than usual for most people's minds to edit reality. The 23rd precinct in New York has that level of PKE, as does H.E.A.T. headquarters on Staten Island, certain areas in Chicago, my facilities at Knightsbridge, and Hawke's cabin at Eagle Lake. And Airwolf herself carries an incredible charge... which may be the main reason that, despite all evidence to the contrary, most people still can't connect Stringfellow Hawke with one stolen, high-tech helicopter.

Airwolf's _tulpa_ isn't the only massive concentration of PKE in this clearing. Himura _glows_ with it.

Flame-red hair, a delicate frame that's pure whipcord muscle, violet eyes that for all their calm remind me of the afterglow of lightning strikes. It's as if he's fire made flesh and bone, a thunderstorm condensed to walk Earth on silent sandals.

_Dragon_ , Airwolf says firmly, amber eyes half-closed as she bumps up against Kenshin's arm for more petting.

I believe you, Angel. But is that safe?

_Calm. Mostly._ Airwolf shrugs her wings, evidently no more worried about what Himura might do than she would be about Hawke wielding a wrench near her delicate electronics. _Warm._

"Okay," Daniel says finally, walking over to where Himura half-kneels on the ground. "What do you three see that I don't?"

"If you believe you don't see it, you won't," Shinomori says flatly.

Daniel gives him a _look_. Aoshi doesn't so much as flinch.

"Gently, gently," Kenshin murmurs. "He's young, Aoshi, that he is. And not used to _kami_." The swordsman holds out a hand. "I do not know if your sense of ki is strong enough yet... but try."

Daniel bites his lip. Places his fingers under Himura's, letting Kenshin lower both their hands toward white fur.

Touches an ear, and starts as if Airwolf's shocked him. "What the-"

"Angel," I say matter-of-factly. "She's a protective spirit. Very protective, as you saw with Anise. I owe her my survival, many times." Not to mention my sanity. And Hawke's.

"Anise." Daniel casts a startled glance at me, hand still hovering over fur he can just barely touch. "That's how your knife-"

"Yes." It's how I left a Tok'ra dazed and bleeding, when their healing abilities should have closed a stab through the hand within minutes. Airwolf sensed Anise's threat and struck _through_ me, aiming rage and love like a diamond knife.

On the one hand, I'm glad Airwolf protected me. Ribbon devices can kill in seconds. On the other, I know I left O'Neill with far too many questions as to precisely how I managed that blow; questions I have no intention of answering. Human empaths are a Goa'uld bogeyman, something that they believe used to exist, but no longer worries them. And I plan to keep it that way as long as possible.

"It is not unheard of, focusing ki into a weapon," Kenshin observes. "Quite common, in ancient _kenjutsu_."

"I have an amateur's love of the blade, no more," I say firmly. I am rather good with a sword, even though I've lost binocular vision. But there's a world of difference between _good_ and _master of kenjutsu_. I have no illusions as to what would happen if I were so idiotic as to attack Himura or Shinomori. None at all.

"It is also," Aoshi says coolly, "Known among _onmitsu_."

"I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a blade of grass," I shrug. Though Firm training does have quite a bit in common.

_Grass?_ Airwolf tilts her head at me.

"A term ninjas sometimes use," I fill in. Bethancourt's databases may have copious descriptions of enemy fighters and paranormal creatures, but I doubt ancient ninja techniques were part of her programming.

"You don't just see her, you hear her," Daniel says thoughtfully. "She's... from this world?"

"Oh yes," I say softly. "I know when she was created. Almost to the hour."

Aoshi's brow twitches at _created_ , and I know I've just opened another can of worms. So be it. He's going to be letting my experts at the Hivemind wreckage found off Japan, so we can be sure there are no mind-warping traps laid in there like the one that caught Drs. Hoffman and Sopler. I may as well ask him for an information exchange on kami in the bargain.

_Ki focus = PKE projection = bite?_

"In a sense, little one," Kenshin nods. "Some focus their power into weapons, or stealth. Yours...." His gaze falls on me. "I will not ask. Though it feels of storm, and metal, and swiftness." A smile lights his eyes as he turns back toward Daniel. "And some, while no swordsmen, find the strength of their ki in the words that move men's hearts, creating solutions not even the strongest blade can carve from life."

"I'm that bad, huh?" Daniel mutters wryly.

"It is the calm and insight the training brings that you need, not the blade-skill itself," Kenshin says firmly. "Do you truly wish to be a _kenshi?_ "

"No," Daniel says after a minute to think. "Not really. I mean, when it comes down to it, we're usually using guns." He looks away.

Oh, Daniel. There isn't a being in this clearing who would fault you for defending yourself or your team. _Any_ way you had to.

"Then come to the bokken for peace." Violet is warm, welcoming. "Kaoru is glad to have students who know they _can_ do harm - but truly do not wish to."

"Peace." Daniel looks back down the way they must have come in, shakes his head.

I know what he's thinking. Would that I didn't. "I don't have any good answers for you." I try to keep my voice level, free of condemnation. "In his defense, I will say that the colonel's usual routes of appeal to deal with situations like the NID have been neatly pinched off."

I stalk the clearing, needing to move. Standing too long aches at a knee rebuilt through more surgery than I like to remember. "Ordinarily O'Neill would go through Hammond - who, as you've mentioned, has already been effectively silenced. He might go to the Pentagon, yet due to the SGC's highly classified nature, the personnel he can speak to are limited. Those he can reach seem rather firmly in bed with the overt arm of the NID and doggedly determined to ignore its so-called 'rogue' elements. And his ties to any form of civilian authority are incredibly weak; son deceased, his ex-wife has moved on with her life, and all those he has a real attachment to," chiefly Daniel and Cassandra Fraiser, sweet little teenager from another planet that she is, "Are directly or indirectly part of the SGC. Whom the NID is threatening to take over, one way or another. Under those circumstances the colonel's likely fallen into the mindset of a covert operative in enemy territory; give no one any more information than absolutely necessary, in case your enemies seize them." I hold up a hand as Daniel throws me an angry glare. _Good. Be angry. God, Daniel, you have to get angry at someone._ "It's not an _excuse_ , it's a _reason_. I do not condone his behavior. If he were one of mine, I'd have pulled him out for a breather and refresher courses ages ago. But he's not, and I can't." I steady myself. "But I can pull you out. If that's what you want."

"What I want?" Blue is very wide behind glass. "What I want... has nothing to do with it."

Aoshi _hmph_ s. "What you want has everything to do with it."

_So Shinomori's made up his mind_. I rest my hands on my cane. Out of the corner of my eye I note Kenshin being particularly quiet, unwilling to tip the precarious balance among two professional spies and one amateur. _But in whose favor?_

_"Shinnen,"_ the ninja says coolly. "It is the only way you will prevail."

_?_ Airwolf nudges me.

_Strong spirit, Angel._ I'm not a linguist, but I do my best. _Unwavering determination. The pure conviction that not only do you have the right to be on the path you have chosen, but you have the moral obligation and responsibility to do so, as part of something greater than yourself._

I feel her poke and prod that concept, matching it against her basic programming and the more complex network of associations she's created through the years with us. _Mission statement_ , she decides, a glint of fang in my mind's eye. _Hawke/Dominic/Caitlin/Michael Archangel_ mine. _Mission parameters go/no-go._

That's... not a bad concept match. For us, for my missions, Airwolf will move heaven and earth. Anything else is taken on a case-by-case basis, always subject to reconsideration if it threatens her parameters of self and pilot preservation.

Of all the creatures in this clearing, she may be the closest to samurai.

"Decide your path, and walk it," Aoshi states. "If your heart is divided, you can defend no one. Not even yourself."

And I try not to sigh in relief.

Shinomori's decided to work with me. For now.

Which means the next few weeks, at the least, will be _very_ busy. I'll need to re-juggle Washington meetings, authorize the release of certain documents to Japanese intelligence through deniable channels, and double-check that my people can test Japan's deep-sea salvage community for signs of Hivemind influence. Not to mention that while we're all not shooting each other, I have to see if I can set up a three-way meeting between myself, Shinomori's people, and Philippe...

I really do pity my administrative staff sometimes.

Flowers, Michael. Remember to bring flowers.

"I can get you out, if you choose, Daniel," I say frankly. "The NID may be able to wreak mad havoc on military personnel, but they have no power over the Firm." Though they might try.

In fact, I rather hope they do. One attack would make it self-defense, and as Hawke has so aptly demonstrated on a plethora of prior occasions, vigorous self-defense can eliminate so _many_ difficulties. Who says violence never solves anything?

"Or you can walk back into the flames, and seek your wife," Aoshi says, just as level. "If it were Misao who were taken - I know what I would do."

Daniel studies us both.

Then, slowly, turns to the one man who's remained so very silent.

"I am here," Kenshin says deliberately. "I will be here."

And even the wind falls quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tulpa - a spirit created by focussed and disciplined thought. Found chiefly in Tibetan traditions, but sometimes used today by various mystical traditions. The idea of a human-created (often vengeful, sometimes protective) spirit echoes in a lot of folklore. The Tupilak of Greenland Eskimos, the ship spirits of Europe and the tsukumogami of Japan all share similarities.
> 
> Translations from Japanese (Webster's Pocket Dictionary, the RK manga, and Flashing Steel by Masayuki Shimabukuro and Leonard J. Pellman):
> 
> Kodachi - sword mid-length between a wakazashi and a katana. Also called the "shield sword".
> 
> Bokken - wooden sword.
> 
> Bakumatsu - The final, chaotic days of the Tokugawa regime, prior to Meiji.
> 
> Tanuki - raccoon dog.
> 
> Onmitsu - Spies, or ninja.
> 
> Bushido - The way of the samurai.
> 
> Oniwabanshu - Elite group of spies.
> 
> Do Ryuu Sen - Earth-dragon strike.
> 
> Kami - Spirit.
> 
> Kenshi - Swordsman.
> 
> Shinnen - Unwavering determination.


	3. Chapter 3

_Kaoru_

"Not here." Colonel O'Neill visibly reins in whatever he was planning to say. "Is he safe?"

"I don't know," I say baldly. "Is he?"

And I watch O'Neill flinch. Maybe I'm enjoying this a little too much?

_Naah_ , a little voice that sounds entirely too much like Sanosuke chirps in my head. _Give it to him good, Jo-chan!_

Which might be easier if Sanosuke were actually here. I thought about calling him; he'll be coming over here this afternoon anyway, and a near six foot, wiry, supernaturally tough martial artist is a lot more impressive to the average soldier than a five-three female kendo instructor.

But O'Neill is not your average soldier, and for goodness' sakes, I am a master of Kamiya Kasshin Ryu. The day I can't handle three Air Force types - keh.

And if I _have_ to handle them, if we've misjudged their intelligence and common sense that much... then I may as well pull one of Kenshin's tricks out of my sleeve and concuss them all before they realize I've even moved.

It startled the heck out of me the first time it happened, sparring Kenshin; just as it stunned Yahiko after he had time to pick apart his duel with Kenji. Just one breath when I _felt_ everything slow around me, and my sword moved light as the wind.

Hiko Seijuro, damn his arrogant hide, just smirked when we tracked him down at his kiln and asked him about it. _You live inside a Hiten Mitsurugi master's protection, Kaoru-san. It has consequences._

Which I swear is probably as close as that egotistical, overbearing, conceited master swordsman will get to admitting to my husband that he had no _idea_ Hiten Mitsurugi was passed down from hanyou to hanyou. I don't know when that bit of lore was lost, but apparently Hiko's master either never knew or never told his student he was a neko-hanyou. And our Hiko never realized the little redhead he picked up as a student had dragon's blood in his veins. He just thought Kenshin "felt right".

I wonder how many pots Hiko broke when someone finally got it through his head that the hermit potter wasn't aging?

I can't call on the dragon's speed often. It'll likely wipe me out for a good few hours if I do call it. And I'm still no match for Kenshin's quickness.

But if I want these people down, they'll be down.

I see O'Neill read that in my eyes. He doesn't look _worried_ , exactly. But concerned. Definitely concerned.

"I believe she is displeased with your actions, O'Neill," Teal'c rumbles.

"Ya think?" O'Neill mutters. "How bad did he look when he got here?"

"Bad," I say flatly. "Think Pearl Harbor. Dachau. Nagasaki."

"You were there?" Samantha bites her lip.

"No." Thankfully. I've read descriptions. Talked to some of the survivors, on our few visits to Japan. It's more than enough. The only thing that saves my sanity sometimes is the knowledge that no one - _no one_ \- really had any idea what radioactivity truly did to human flesh.

And given what Hiko and Saitou told me of how our homeland itself seemed to go mad, of tales of cannibalism, unholy experiments, women on all sides forced into the most degrading prostitution - I can't help but be guiltily glad for Kenshin's red hair.

He could stand being called old-fashioned. He could take being frowned on for carrying a banned sword. He could even endure being hated as the Hitokiri Battousai.

But as the twentieth century rolled on, the insult that came more and more often was _gaijin_.

It's when they started calling me that, for my blue eyes, that Kenshin admitted it was time to go.

_Past is past. Let it go._ "I don't know what happened. I don't know if you had a good reason. Right now, I don't care." I glare at O'Neill. "You _hurt_ him. I've picked up warriors off the battlefield in better shape! I've seen my husband-"

I choke off the words. It hurts. It'll _always_ hurt.

_Use the pain to save other lives_ , my beloved's voice whispers out of memory. _That is why Hitokiri Battousai is still alive in the Meiji Era._

"I saw my husband look like that," I whisper through threatening tears, "When we found what was left of our son."

I remember the ache of fear as Aoshi told us who had snared our little one, and why. The Illuminati, a group of arrogant bastards whose tradition reaches back to at least to 9th century Europe, bent on the twin goals of world rule and extending their own lives by any means possible. Including the capture and draining of magical creatures' essence, to create the potions that hold back Time.

And a hanyou's children... a dragon's children... are so very magical.

I remember the scream of panic down my nerves as we hit that compound in one fast, silent rush; mother's instinct, shrieking at me that my baby was hurt, my baby was dying. I remember blood, and cold flesh, and the endless black grief as we realized we were just too late.

And I remember violet lost in one terrible blaze of amber, and the scream of steel as my own sword flew free....

Aoshi won't talk about the rest of that night. Misao's a little more helpful, but most of what the little _kunoichi_ remembers is one scared Oniwabanshu leader tossing her out the door of the Illuminati lab before twin blasts of ki shattered every bit of glass in thirty feet. After that, there was some gunfire, a few screams, and Aoshi's hands shaking as he set the whole place up to go when we were... finished.

Kenshin had to show me how to clean off my sword.

"I think you're lucky," I manage, forcing back the memories. "Daniel's not going to kill you." The thought probably hasn't crossed Daniel's mind. There's darkness in that young man, yes, just as there is within everyone. But whatever touch of oddness or magic lets him sense ki, he doesn't have the pure, predatory viciousness you find in hanyou. "I also think you ought to be pounded into the ground like a tent peg. So give me an excuse. Please."

Wisely, O'Neill shuts up.

"Kamiya Kaoru." Teal'c inclines his head, black wool cap as gracious as a samurai's topknot. "Samantha Carter and I wish to speak with Daniel Jackson, so we might plan our strategy to deal with the events we now know to have occurred."

"We didn't know." Sam shoots a dark look toward her colonel. "There's a lot we didn't know."

It doesn't sound like a lie. And there's a limit to how much salt you can pour into a wound if you want it to heal. "Then come on."

Trailing military officers, I start into the woods behind the dojo. Not heading toward Kenshin's practice ground; if he's still there, Daniel's in no shape to talk yet. But there's another place he might be. Up this way, where the little rivulet that comes off granite skirls into a shallow creek next to a patch of ground too full of rocks to have much tree cover.

"Hyah!"

And there's my husband, dancing steel through air.

No matter how often I see him practice, it still takes my breath away. Kenshin's katas are pure, precise; every move so perfectly placed you can see the opponents that exist, and fall, only in his mind's eye.

Upward slash across the chest, under his enemy's too-slow sword. Pivot and turn to block another's strike from behind, continuing the slash to tear open a throat. Hilt-strike and a saya tangling a war fan and a swift dodge that I feel taunting his enemy's Gatotsu....

Other styles may rely on strength. Hiten Mitsurugi is precision, height, and blinding speed.

A clean, high leap-

_Ryuu Tsui Sen_ and _battoujutsu_ , before he ever touches the ground.

Kami-sama, he's beautiful.

* * *

 

_Sam_

God, he's terrifying.

My feet are frozen to the ground, refusing to carry me one step closer to the blade currently slashing the wind to pieces. I've seen so-called primitive weapons in action before. Arrows, spears, axes, slingshots - I think we've had them all headed our way at one point or another. Humans may be slaves of the Goa'uld across the galaxy, but they still work out ways to kill each other. And us. Some of them are pretty good at it, too.

But I've never seen _anything_ like what Himura's doing.

Shadow and flame-flicker and the swift, clean arc of steel. Violet eyes watching the whole battlefield at once, sparks of amber in their depths. Body and sword moving as one as he strikes, dodges, tumbles, strikes again.

Fine hairs are standing up on the back of my neck. Chill sweat prickles down my spine. The pure reptile part of my brain is screaming _Run! Now!_

A slightly more evolved section of my brain is emitting mammal-whimpers of distress, recognizing that fuck it, it's too damn late to run. The predator is _here_ and it's _fast_ and it _sees me_ \- and if it wants me for lunch, I am toast.

And what's left of my higher brain functions are just watching, impaled between horror and wonder, as Death dances with the wind.

He slows. Draws the blade once more through air. Snaps his right wrist, twisting the blade a quarter-turn counterclockwise.

My brain paints in _blood, shaking red off the blade, god, so much blood-_

Steel slides back into its sheath, and I remember to breathe again.

Feet and legs vote for getting while the getting's good. Hind-brain agrees, narrowly overruled by my conscious mind's iron clamp on my fear. I will _not_ desert my superior officer. I _will not._

But God, I am regretting ever, _ever_ coming near this man.

"The first principle of Hiten Mitsurugi," Kenshin says quietly, still not looking at us. "The sword I raise is lifted in defense of all people."

_Gack_ , my brain yelps.

"If you had said from the first you feared invasion from the stars, O'Neill," Kenshin turns toward us, eyes cool violet, "We might have saved a great deal of time."

* * *

 

_Jack_

Erk.

He knows.

He _knows_.

_How_ Kenshin knows, I don't know. It's not the guy in glasses making himself unobtrusive against a maple over there to my right. I know Daniel. I know he knows what classified means. He may have walked Catherine Langford straight through our front gate, but she was in the Stargate program years before _I_ was. She knew we had an interplanetary gateway.

So someone else told him. Who, I'd better find out. Soon.

Right after I deal with the fact that Kenshin knows... and now Kaoru does too. I heard her gasp. That wasn't a "that's impossible" gasp, it was an "are you sure" gasp. Trust me, after a couple years dealing with alien tech, alternate realities, and Apophis refusing to stay dead way too many times, you learn the difference.

He knows, and he told his wife in front of us. Which means he wants all of us here to _know_ they know.

And it'll probably mean a lot more than that, once I get a chance to breathe and think it out. I know that, just from seeing him practice.

I'm not sure how much Sam got out of Kenshin's little display, besides a spine-tingling case of the heebie-jeebies. Which, to be honest, Teal'c and I also got. Himura may be all small bones, girl-slender muscles and innocent eyes, but those moves are Death pure as Tek'mateh Bra'tac in a serious bad mood.

Purer. Fast. Efficient. Precise. Every slice of steel calculated to take someone down or out.

Drop Himura Battousai in the middle of a squad of angry Marines, I'd lay even odds he'd walk out without a scratch.

That's not just sword-work. That's thinking. Thinking in the middle of one of the worst possible environments for a mind to work in ever known to man; face-to-face combat, tasting your enemy's breath, every blow and scream jarring right through your fingers into your brain. Himura can kill _and think_.

I may have finally met somebody who can out-tactic me and Teal'c put together.

Well, _damn_.

_Reality check, O'Neill_ , part of my brain pokes at me. _You wanted someone out there who could stop the Goa'uld if they ever got past the Mountain, right?_

Oh yeah. I just didn't believe anybody like that really _existed_.

"Daniel!" Sam pounces on our errant archaeologist, all but giving him a full body check before she looks in his eyes. "Oh, Daniel... I'm so sorry. We didn't know. We didn't - oh, god."

"It's all right, Sam." Danny sounds tired, but together. Mostly. "We're going to get through this. I promise."

"I, too, must render my apologies, Daniel Jackson." Teal'c inclines his head, formal as he would be to Bra'tac. "I had thought my oath to you discharged. Now I know it is not. I will not be so swift to lay my debt aside again."

Himura clears his throat quietly. Gives me a look, and a tilt of fiery hair.

I can take a hint. Especially when it's pounded in with a sledgehammer.

"So," I say as the two of us make a stealthy retreat back toward the dojo, leaving Kaoru to look after my team, "You going to tell me how bad I screwed up?"

"That, you already know." Kenshin's voice isn't edged, but there's no give in it either. "Why should I tear the wound deeper?"

Somehow, that makes it worse.

The violet gaze brushes mine, just a few flecks of amber glowing in their depths. "Though had I any idea last night that you had made such an unfortunate miscalculation of judgment, I might have _Ryuu Tsui Sen_ -ed you a few feet closer to China."

I don't want to know. I _really_ don't want to know. "Ryuu-?"

"Dragon Mallet Strike." Kenshin's hand mimes one of those overhead blows.

I can't help but flinch. This guy leaps over _twenty feet_ into the air and makes it look like _nothing_. Imagine that coming down on top of you, gravity pulling his sword stronger than any human muscles could slice it down. "What does that do with a real blade?"

"I believe you can imagine it, that I do."

I wish I couldn't. "Who told you about the Mountain?"

"Who told me about your Stargate, and the war you have started through it, is my concern." Kenshin sounds slightly amused. "Or should I say, the war you rediscovered. For soon or late, this foe would have found us again, that they would. And if late, the way of the sword might have died out of the world, and any resistance would be crippled to the core."

Yeah; we might have ended up like the Tollans, so dependent on our tech that we wouldn't know how to fight the Goa'uld without it....

And he just slipped the subject right out from under me again. Damn, he's good. "What goes on in NORAD is classified. What goes on under NORAD-"

"Concerns not only this continent, but the whole of the world." No smile on Kenshin's face. Not now. "Why do you cripple those who would fight by your side?"

"It's not that simple."

A slight nod. "Life never is."

"You saw World War II," I persist. "You know what kind of double-dealing and sabotage goes on in a war, even here in America-"

And I feel like checking my tongue for boot-prints.

_Consider the cultural background_ , Daniel's always telling us. _Just because you're standing in the same place, doesn't mean you see the same thing._

Kenshin and Kaoru are _Japanese_. If they were here in America, odds are they were stuck in a camp at Manzanar. Or someplace worse, given that Kaoru's got a temper and Kenshin is just plain dangerous.

"Kaoru and I spent much of that war _rurouni_ , with our children." Kenshin brushes back red bangs. "Most thought us half-breed Indians wandered from the Four Corners, not Issei, or even Nisei." He smiles faintly. "It helps that I have some skill in medicines. Few will turn down a healer when there is true need."

Some skill, huh? Is that like saying you're just a _little_ good with a sword?

But he's left me an opening, and damned if I'm not going to take it. "Is that when you lost your son?"

"No." Cool. Abrupt. "Kanaye was born later."

_And murdered later still_ , I see in those dark eyes. "I'm kind of surprised," I say carefully. I'm walking on lava crust here, and I know it. But I've got to know. "The way Kaoru looked, I would have thought nothing short of a bomb could've hid the bodies."

"Kaoru acted as any mother would."

Any mother who's a master of the sword. Pure, protective rage; that's what I saw in her eyes. That first red heat where you don't see human beings anymore. You just see enemy, and pain, and hate. Whoever got Kanaye, she got him. Cold. "How many were there?"

"Together, we faced thirty-seven." Amber burns at me. "And that is _enough_."

Mrs. O'Neill didn't raise any idiots. I bite off _and how many of those did you get_ before it ever gets to my lips. I already know the answer is _most of them_.

After all, he's the guy who kept count.

"At least you have someone else to blame," I mutter.

"Do I?" Kenshin shakes his head. "He died because I lowered my guard. Because I did not believe my child would do something... foolish." Small shoulders sink in a sigh. "I was wrong."

I didn't believe Charlie would pick up the gun....

"Dads are supposed to be perfect," I say quietly. "There's this wonderful little person who looks up at us like we saved the universe, and we're not supposed to let them down. Ever."

"Hai."

I swallow. "But at the end of the day we're just people. We try, and we love them... but we're just people." Even if we can cross the galaxy in a single step. Even if we can dance steel with the wind.

"Death is easy," Kenshin says, just as quiet. "Life is as fragile as a fluttering swallowtail, and as precious." Violet looks up at me. "But a butterfly can only live on an open hand. Close your fist about it, and it will perish; that it will."

They say about the best swords, you never know you've been cut until you start to bleed.

All I know is I feel a shock in my heart as Himura steps back and bows. And retreats a few careful, respectful steps, before turning his back to go look after his wife. Or maybe protect my team _from_ his wife. I'm not sure anymore.

I'm not sure about much of anything anymore.

I find a solid oak and lean on it, trying to catch my breath. Is _that_ what I did to Daniel?

Stifled him. Locked him in and locked him out; kept him away from civilians because he's SGC, wouldn't listen to him in the field because he's still a civilian, not a soldier, and never mind he's got more experience than half the Guard reservists I've met. I'm the colonel; I knew better than he did when it came to keeping him safe from bad guys with guns, and bad guys with glowing eyes, and bad guys with twisted senses of morality like Archangel.

Clue, Jack. If Daniel wanted _safe_ , he'd never have gone through the 'Gate the first time.

It's the innocent look, I swear it is. You see that, and you hear the absent-minded chatter about Egyptian influence on Mesopotamian writing systems, and you notice the sidearm on his hip is the last thing on his mind, and you think he's an idiot.

And you miss what's really happening. Which is that Daniel walks into dangerous people like an EOD specialist confronting a live round; both eyes open, trying to figure out if it's a bomb or a dud or too unstable to do anything but run. And he smiles, and he fumbles with words, and he tries to figure out how to soothe arrogant tempers... and every last bit of it is aimed so that we never have to draw our guns.

I'd take that skill over a grenade launcher any day. You can replace a grenade launcher. No one can replace Daniel.

Believe me, the general's looked. Partly to make the upper brass happy; partly to try and get Daniel some backup and deal with the backlog of artifacts and writings we've picked up along the way. That's how we snagged Major Mary Roscoe out of an intelligence language center. That's how we've gotten half a dozen soldiers and airmen with odd scientific and craft skills, from a sergeant who pokes around megalithic rocks to a private who's written newsletter articles on fourteenth-century battlefield medicine. But there's _nobody_ out there with the kind of linguistic and cultural skills Dr. Daniel Jackson has...

And my blood runs cold.

We can't replace Daniel. General Hammond can't replace Daniel.

And now I know why we haven't been looking for Sha'uri.

* * *

 

_Daniel_

"I'm sorry."

I pour Jack a cup of coffee, freshen my own as I stand in my apartment kitchen. "I know."

Jack cradles ceramic in his hands, staring down into the rich steam. "I didn't plan... I just...."

I wait.

"I didn't want to hurt you."

_You never do._ Well, almost never. There's been once or twice... never mind. "I know."

"I just didn't think we could be that lucky," Jack says in a rush. "The universe isn't fair. Fate doesn't play nice. I'm dead in other universes. Hell, _you're_ dead in a lot of them. We saw her die, and just because she was alive in that one place-" Knuckles clench on white glaze. He takes one hand off the cup, deliberately loosens up his fingers. "The world's not fair."

_Especially a world where you lost Sara, and I might have a chance to get Sha'uri back_ , I think. But I don't say it. I'm not sure Jack's looked at himself that deeply. I'm not sure I want him to.

I'm not the only one in the SGC on shaky mental ground. I know it, the general knows it, and deep down, I think Jack knows it too.

Thirty days of combat. That's all any reasonable human being can take before they start to crack. Before you have to pull them out of the line of battle, away from the front, to stop and rest and shake away the terror. Thirty days.

Which, come to think of it, was about as long as the typical European medieval siege was supposed to last, before a knight's term of service was up and their obligation to their own lands outweighed that to their king. Hmm. Maybe they knew something we didn't.

Anyway. We're not usually in combat for thirty days at a time, thank gods. But there's nowhere we can go to get away from the fight. Not even on Earth. The NID saw to that.

Have I mentioned I'm really starting to not like those people?

_Michael's putting together a plan. Trust him._

I do, even though the thought of an Archangel-inspired plan makes my stomach want to do flip-flops. I've got no real clue what Archangel and Aoshi kept talking about after Kenshin and I left, but I have this gnawing suspicion it will be wild, crazy, lethal, and the NID will get it in the teeth.

That kind of feels... nice.

Time to throw the dice. "I want to be able to talk to Archangel."

"Daniel, nobody's stopping you from-" Jack stops. Looks at me.

I stare right back, trying to keep my face calm while my guts are busy tying themselves in knots. _You heard me, Jack. I said_ Archangel, _not Michael_. "The Tok'ra have been after the Goa'uld for two thousand years, and all they've done is keep the System Lords as one loose confederation of squabbling powers. A group that only pulls together to face the Asgaard... or the Hivemind. The Tok'ra don't care about the Asgaard, but I will bet you two weeks of translation the main thing keeping them from really moving against the Goa'uld is the Hivemind."

"And?" Jack says levelly.

"Archangel's got access to Hivemind information on Earth. I want it. I want to talk to the people working on it. I want to know what they think, what they see." I wave a hand at the window, vaguely indicating the wider world. "The Tok'ra aren't giving us the whole story, and the Asgaard have been pretty picky in their details. I want to put what we've got together and see what it looks like."

Or in plain language, Jack, _get me some help_. We can't do this all ourselves.

"Joint Chiefs aren't going to like it." Jack holds up a hand. "This isn't like sneaking in Williams to be a host. You're talking large-scale information exchange with the Firm, and they are not going to like it."

I snort. "Do I look like I _care?_ "

"Point." Jack sips his coffee. "So how did Himura find out?"

Uh-uh, you don't get off the hook that easy. "Ki sense," I say smoothly. "Teal'c has two auras. And it's pretty obvious he's _not_ pregnant." I shiver. "Kenshin says that one of them is... clearly not from around here. As in, makes the hair stand up on the back of his neck, not from around here. And if Teal'c wasn't obviously my friend, he'd have a hard time not killing it."

"People with ki sense were demon slayers," Jack mutters. "You don't think...?"

"Seth was on Earth," I say firmly. "Hathor was on Earth. Why couldn't there have been others?"

"Others we never knew about, because the heart readers got them?" Jack says skeptically.

"Why not?" I shrug. " _Ib-seshatai._ The bogeyman. The people the Goa'uld tried to wipe out of the gene pool. Who can hear farther, or move faster, or just do things the Goa'uld with all their technology couldn't explain." I glance at some of the texts piled on one side of my counter. "Sounds like legendary heroes from every culture I've run across."

"People who kill Goa'uld without thinking twice. Because it's instinct." Jack shakes his head. "How could we lose something like that?"

_You have to ask?_ I saw their faces when they watched Kenshin practice. All of them. The people I thought I knew, who I thought would be amazed and delighted, who _knew_ I would never lead them into enemy hands....

I can tell you what their first thought was, and it wasn't _wow_.

More like, _where did I leave my grenade launcher?_

"Humans are pretty good at killing what scares them," I say neutrally.

Jack gives me an odd look. "Kenshin doesn't scare you."

I tilt my head. "Why would he?"

Jack's jaw works. "I hate to say this, Danny-"

Yeah, I'll bet.

"-But _hello?_ Assassin?"

" _Former_ assassin," I say bluntly. "I know. He was the Hitokiri Battousai. Terror of Kyoto, killer of samurai, and all-around government nightmare. Operative word there being _was_ , Jack." I put down my coffee. "He has a wife. Children. He teaches kendo. He works with Dr. Takani to treat people who don't trust Western medicine. He's kind."

Jack lifts a brow, unconvinced. "And he could kill you inside of five seconds."

"But he won't." I toy with the handle of my coffee mug. "Jack, sooner or later you have to trust somebody."

And I hope you never realize what a hypocrite I am right now. Standing here in my kitchen, listening to me ask you to trust... when I'm the one who's let Archangel sneak into the SGC computers.

Only - it's my job to find ways to solve SG-1's problems. Before they kill us. Before I'm even asked; because if Jack has to ask, it may already be too late.

And the NID is the biggest problem we have.

And if it takes Archangel and the Firm to solve it - well, damn it, what else am I supposed to do?

"I'll talk to the general about Archangel," Jack says at last. "Meantime, let me tell you what the Tok'ra haven't found on Amaunet...."

* * *

 

_Kenshin_

"Aliens?" Sanosuke says again, rice forgotten in his chopsticks.

"Aliens," I say firmly, letting four-year-old Rei lean against my knee to make faces as we eat around Megumi's low table. Megumi and Sano's youngest daughter has all her mother's fox humor, mixed more than a little of her father's wry sense of timing.

_Pop! Flash!_

...Though one could call that an unnerving sense of timing. I blink the green spots out of my eyes as Kaoru finishes strangling the foxfire illusion of a hand-sized flying saucer. "Rei-chan..."

"No _kitsune-bi_ at dinner, daughter," Megumi says firmly. The effect's somewhat spoiled by the doctor's giggle, black fox ears appearing for an instant in long black hair.

Rei grins back. "'Kay!"

"Two words, Megumi," Kaoru shakes her head. "Home school."

"Been looking at it already," Sano admits. "It's not as easy as it used to be. Bunches of rules and regulations, paperwork...."

"Not to mention the tests to make sure you're not ignoring your child's 'special needs'." Irony laces Megumi's voice as she watches her daughter sleepily damp the glowing blue light in small hands. "I hate to see what will happen the next time you have to argue with an administrator, Ken-san. At least Sano and I seem old enough to be parents. You still look as if you should be brought up on truancy charges!"

"I know," I sigh. It's not as if I can help it. Youkai blood considers time much as ordinary flesh considers wind, and dragons are worse than most.

That is the more comforting way to think of it. Less comforting, but I fear more accurate, is Megumi's theory; that our youkai heritage marks the time in life when we were most perilous, and returns our flesh to that point given the least opportunity to draw on its magic.

For Megumi, that was when she broke free from Kanryuu and attained her doctor's mastery; early twenties. Aoshi's blood in turn recalls being twenty-six, facing myself and then Shishio in Kyoto. Saitou's has settled at thirty-five, marked by that same battle. Shishou Hiko's is not far different; he came to Hiten Mitsurugi already a swordsman. As for me....

The Bakumatsu will always be with me. _Hitokiri Battousai_ \- will always be with me.

It can make dealing with others difficult.

Kaoru stares into her bowl. "It's not like we're going to have to worry about it any time soon."

Megumi and Sano exchange speaking looks. Their ki flares in a mix of comfortable friendship, exasperated patience, and a firm twist of determination.

This... is not good.

I firmly squash the desire to toss my rice bowl in Sano's face, sweep Kaoru into my arms, and bolt for the nearest exit. Sanosuke _knows_ Hiten Mitsurugi masters. He's probably double-locked the doors, and the windows, and booby-trapped them on top of that. And Megumi knows some of the few toxins that will take even a dragon down.

And carving a hole in their house wall would be rude. Very.

When all else fails, bluff. "Oro?"

"Three decades, Kenshin," Sanosuke says firmly. "Don't you two think that's enough time?"

"You miss children," Megumi adds quietly, watching Rei yawn and nestle against my leg, every inch the sleepy fox-blooded kit in a child's kimono. "You love them, and you miss them." Her smile has a bittersweet edge. "I know you love taking care of other people's young ones, but it's not enough."

Sanosuke shrugs at Kaoru. "Got to trust yourself again sometime, right, Jo-chan?"

"I..." Kaoru bites her lip, blue eyes bright.

My beloved is trembling.

I gather her into my arms, whispering soft endearments as I glare over her shoulder at our hosts. Megumi sticks her tongue out at me. Sano just shrugs once more, mouthing, _Somebody had to say it._

"Thank you for dinner," I say politely. "Perhaps we shall see you tomorrow."

Our walk back home is mostly silent. Save the ordinary noises of a city, of course; leaving aside cars and electronic alarms, those have changed little in a century and a half. There is still laughter, and music, and the occasional scream.

"Green raincoat?" Kaoru says under her breath as we near Daniel's apartment building. Her gaze slides over the black-capped man standing in the shadows of a bookshop awning just as any other night-blind human's would, though I know she can see him nearly as well as I.

_"Hai."_ The man's ki is muddy, unfocussed; he likely does know how to use the gun under his raincoat, but not nearly as well as he believes. And he has been staking out Daniel's apartment building for the past three days.

It's beginning to annoy me.

Kaoru grins at me, some of the sparkle returning to blue eyes. "Don't break anything important."

I smile back, and drop a kiss on her cheek.

And vanish.

To most eyes; those like Daniel would catch the hint of movement, and I know Kaoru can see a blur of pink before I step into the shadows wholly.

Cities have so _many_ places to hide.

A few minutes to do what I must, and I rejoin Kaoru at the door. We smile our way past the doorman, hand linking with hand as we make our way up the stairs. "Feel better now?" Kaoru asks wryly.

_"Hai."_ I can't help grinning. Just a little. "And you?"

"I miss him," Kaoru says softly. "I'll always miss him."

I nod. "And we always will, that I know."

She takes a deep breath. "But... I want...."

I kiss her.

And I sweep my arms under her as Kaoru leans against me, feeling her giggles warm against my gi as I take the rest of the steps at godlike speed. Giggles which only intensify as we sense O'Neill's ki drop down in the elevator, completely unsuspecting the gift which awaits him below.

It's good to be home.

* * *

 

_Jack_

There's a lump in the passenger seat of my truck. And it's groaning.

I have to admit I spend a good second or two blinking at the guy in the green raincoat, before glancing over the wallet contents somebody's tastefully spread over my dashboard. Not to mention the neatly slashed metal pieces that used to be a 9-millimeter.

I get the distinct feeling that somebody didn't like this guy.

Three guesses who?

"Augh..." Raincoat blinks at me, and tries to shrink through the back of the seat. "Oh, Christ!"

Uh-huh. Six-foot-plus shorthaired colonel, versus five-two skinny redhead with a ponytail. No way did he mistake me for Himura.

Which means this guy - who I _know_ is NID, the combo of Daniel's apartment building, civilian clothes, and military ID is a dead giveaway - didn't even see who hit him. Nice. "Nope. Though if I were you, Freeman, I'd keep asking. You can use all the help you can get."

He shuts up, which is good for both of us. Now I can think about what to do with Himura's little present. Or should I say, ticking time bomb.

The NID know I don't like them. And I know that they know, and they know I know they know... you can work that around in as many circles as you like.

Kenshin, however, has just set it up so it looks like I not only don't like them, but, one, I know they're stalking Daniel, and two, I'm willing to express my displeasure with that occupation in blunt and embarrassing terms.

Damn it.

I'm not ready for this. Hammond's been trying to work through channels. I've been trying to talk to various people who've wound up owing me over the years, getting subtle chips knocked out of the wall of deniability around the NID's "rogue elements". I _know_ Maybourne didn't go rogue - he got _sent_ rogue, to get that 'Gate back from Russia. I don't have any evidence, not yet, but it's the only scenario that makes sense.

So we've been working on trying to wriggle out of the NID's stranglehold. But it takes time. It takes patience.

And me, being the brilliant guy that I am, just _had_ to get a guerilla skirmisher who survived a civil war with about a hundred-odd competing factions involved in this whole mess. A guy who apparently has _no_ patience, and even less compunctions about framing me for a crime I would have very much liked to commit.

I can almost hear Himura's voice. _I think you have spent enough time sitting on this fence, that I do._

Damn it, this goes farther than my team, or even the SGC! I'm trying to think about the whole _world_ here.

And... that's exactly how I wound up hurting Daniel, isn't it.

"Get out."

Freeman goes white. "Wha-"

"Get out!" I snarl. "Now!"

He bolts out the passenger door, leaving his ID and what's left of his gun behind.

I wait until the sound of his panicked feet fades into the night, then lean my head against the rim of the steering wheel. My head hurts. My heart hurts.

Duty or my friend. Duty or my family. Duty or my team.

I can't decide.

I can't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gaijin - Foreigner.
> 
> Kunoichi - female ninja.
> 
> Ryuu Tsui Sen - Dragon Mallet strike.
> 
> Rurouni - Wandering swordsman. (Word created by Watsuki.)
> 
> Issei - Japanese immigrants to America.
> 
> Nisei - First American-born generation of Japanese.
> 
> Hai - Yes.
> 
> Kitsune-bi - Foxfire.

**Author's Note:**

> Yamete - Stop.
> 
> Aa - Informal yes.
> 
> Kendo - The sport of swordsmanship.
> 
> Kenjutsu - The art of sword battle.
> 
> Satsujin-ken - Murderous sword technique.
> 
> A/N: For Stargate fans, a short intro to the manga Rurouni Kenshin.
> 
> Japan, 1864 to 1869: the Hitokiri Battousai killed in service of the Ishin Shishi, who fought to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate and restore the emperor to power. But after the battle of Toba Fushimi was won, while other patriots took up positions of wealth and power in the new government, Battousai vanished without a trace...
> 
> Until Tokyo, 1878, when 17-year-old Kamiya Kasshin instructor Kamiya Kaoru hunted the night streets for the famous "Hitokiri Battousai" who was murdering people around her dojo. And found instead a small, apparently young and clumsy redheaded wanderer with a cross-shaped scar on his cheek, carrying a sakabatou (reverse-bladed sword) which can injure, but not kill.
> 
> Long story very short, Kaoru soon found and was attacked by the real killer... and saved by the rurouni, Himura Kenshin. Who is, in fact, the real Hitokiri Battousai, now sworn to never again take a life. (Though it seems he ends up revising that much, much later, when Kaoru is in danger.)
> 
> Kenshin does, canon, look no older than 18, though he's 28 when the manga starts. Hiko likewise seems "ageless"; constantly mid-thirties from the time he takes Kenshin into his care (when Kenshin's 8) to when he shows up again in Kyoto (Kenshin's 28-29). Hanyou and youkai are never mentioned in the manga, but draw your own conclusions.
> 
> For more setting depth, read Naga's "The Darkest Shadows, The Brightest Lights", on Fanfiction.net. Way cool!


End file.
